


Making Revisions

by AnnetheCatDetective



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: Bickering, Bottom Marvin (Falsettos), First Meetings, Good Parent Whizzer Brown, Insecurity, M/M, Marvin Not Being an Asshole (Falsettos), Non-Linear Narrative, Past Infidelity, Personal Growth, Second Chances, Second First Date, nothing bad happens
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:54:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 47,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23844067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: This happened entirely because I am emotionally compromised.Beginning with Marvin and Whizzer's second first date, skipping back and forth a little in time to look at the repairing of a relationship, mutual personal growth, and the re-definition of what family can mean when you're ready to move past all the things you were taught to believe about the world.
Relationships: Whizzer Brown/Marvin
Comments: 91
Kudos: 96





	1. Second First Date

Whizzer answers the door looking delectable, looking put together. Cream colored loafers with espresso brown details, the trim and tassels. Cream colored slacks with pleats that never make Whizzer look oddly bloated. Turquoise shirt and a salmon pink ascot tucked into the open vee of the collar, he’s fixing one cuff as he answers the door and his hair falls over one side of his brow just so, always just so, his perfection casual and complete.

Marvin feels shabby, in a grey suit that fits the way he thinks it’s supposed to, mostly. In a shirt he’d hoped was good enough for tonight. One with french cuffs, he’d spent so long in the mirror wondering who he was kidding, french cuffs and a narrow tie, forest green striped with sky blue, and the tie had come with matching cufflinks and pocket square, a notion which made him wonder even more who he was kidding, as he’d stood in front of his mirror and failed to tame his hair at all, and so he’d left off the pocket square but he’d worn his good watch, and he’s holding a dozen red roses like a shield because he feels like a slob.

“Oh.” Whizzer looks him over.

“Yup. Still me. Unfortunate, I know, but I remain the man you made this date with.”

“Flowers.”

“Only dressed a _little_ better-- oh. I thought you’d like--”

“I like.” He reaches out to take them, leaving Marvin without his shield. “You look…”

“I know.”

“ _Nice_.” He reaches out, tweaking Marvin’s tie. “You look handsome.”

“Oh. You--”

“I know.” Whizzer grins.

“You look…” He bites his lip, he sighs. “Good enough to eat.”

“Promises, promises.” He tuts and shakes his head. “Come in for a sec? I should grab a vase.”

Whizzer’s apartment is tasteful. Well-furnished. He has _things_ , he didn’t have _things_ two years ago, just a lot of clothes. He’d moved in with Marvin with plenty of clothes and just a few knick-knacks, really. His old apartment had been furnished, the things in it hadn’t been his. But Whizzer has a big tasteful photo print behind his couch and he has lamps-- the lamps on his end tables, Tommaso Barbi knock-off lamps, swirls of white ceramic, purple and gilt shades. Ultra-modern furniture which might not be his, but art which is, and just _things_. A bar cart with an ice bucket and a cocktail shaker and little… _bar_ _things_ , and dishes and glasses behind glass-fronted cabinets in his little kitchen full of _kitchen things_ , and a pink ceramic swan, an art deco pink ceramic swan on his coffee table.

“Cute.” Marvin remarks, as Whizzer grabs vinegar and sugar and starts running the water, lukewarm, to be able to fill a vase.

“You like him?”

“Him?”

Whizzer shrugs. “I was going to get two, for the side tables. But… Anyway. He makes the place cheerful.”

The crystal vase he grabs from behind his sink is familiar. It had sat in their apartment, when it was their apartment. Every so often it sat, pointedly empty, in the center of the table. And if he wanted to keep Whizzer sweet, he’d bring home flowers. Which he had done, dutifully, never too too late. They had failed to thrill, in the end, they had been perfunctory. But these, he fusses over, fills the vase with water, half-way. Stirs in the sugar and the vinegar-- he’d explained once it keeps the flowers fresh longer. Arranges each rose with care, sniffs at them, smiles over them. Smiles over at Marvin.

“Can I give you a proper tour of the place? While you’re here?”

“I wouldn’t want to miss our reservation.” He answers carefully. Not that it’s a given that the offer of a tour would include a detailed stop to explore all the delights of the bed, but, well… 

They were always combustible. There’s a promise in that look-- which might yet be rescinded, depending on how dinner goes. Whizzer knows the worst of Marvin, and he’s got options, sure. He’s still so damn beautiful, if this goes badly, he could walk away, find happiness elsewhere. But Marvin’s figured some things out, in all the days, the weeks, the months of desperate introspection, of trying to encourage some growth out of himself. He’s figured some things out, and Whizzer’s the big one. He just can’t see much future without him, not where he’s happy, fulfilled. With someone. He’s given up on putting himself out there. Whenever a man who’s not Whizzer has reached for him, he’s pulled away, made his apologies. He hadn’t meant to fall in love… but what else do you call it, when a man keeps a hold like that on you?

“Reservations.” He licks his lips, he grabs his jacket. “Right.”

“I hope-- the offer will be there later. I mean it looks… lovely. My place-- I’ve got a place that could use… I don’t…” He stammers, his voice dies away. He watches Whizzer slip into his jacket and he wonders where his tongue has fled.

“I remember you being more confident.” Whizzer steps forward, cupping his chin.

“Was I confident, the night we met? I don’t remember.”

“You were… charming. Drunk. You were downing your third fuzzy navel when you told me your wife thought you were at a sports bar and you were going to kiss a boy that night. By the time we got to bed you were more peach schnapps than man, but you made me laugh. And you told me I had a perfect face, which… I gave you some points for that.”

“My courage was artificial.”

“I noticed. But it got the job done.” He laughs. His hand falls away from Marvin’s face, to a mutual sigh. He wants it back. But then he leans in, close, fixes Marvin’s collar and touches his already-straightened tie with deft fingers, takes his hand so that he can neaten one french cuff. “You really do look good, Marv.”

“Oh-- I--”

“Is this shirt new?”

“It’s been two years, Whizzer, maybe. I don’t expect you to remember all my shirts.”

“Just the ugliest ones. No, really, is this-- is this a new shirt? You never dressed so nice.”

He squirms, he shifts, he rolls his eyes heavenward and narrowly avoids Whizzer’s gaze. “I wanted to wear something I hoped you wouldn’t hate.”

“Marvin… you _bought_ this for our _date_?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Just what you did.” 

“Maybe.”

“Maybe.” Whizzer smiles, soft. Whizzer’s lips brush Marvin’s cheek, softer. “Let’s not be late for this reservation, then. Show off the new shirt.”

He offers his arm, and Whizzer accepts. They walk down, they hail a cab. They sit in the back with their hands not quite touching and they shoot each other smiles, and Marvin watches Whizzer’s face like a starving man, like finding water after forty years in the desert, when they come to a stop and Whizzer sees the place. 

“I forgot how _lavish_ you used to be.”

He could afford to be lavish, at the start-- and he can now, again. It’s not just that love’s new again-- it’s that he can afford child support and still splurge on a lover, now that he’s no longer paying alimony. He hadn’t thought about that, when he’d thrown such a fit about Trina remarrying. Though perhaps if she’d taken anyone other than his shrink, he would have felt differently, but there was no way to have a doctor-client relationship with a thing like that, and after the initial rush of confused feeling, he’d resented her taking Mendel more than he’d resented Mendel taking her. But there was no framework for feeling that way, it was normal to be possessive of your ex-wife and it was crazy to be possessive of your shrink. 

Also, he can afford a lot of splurging just because he’s spent two years not doing much. Not going out, not having fun… not living, not really. Two years with his life in traction. Doing things on the weekend sometimes if Jason wanted to, but never carving out time to do anything just for himself, and certainly not… not dating.

“I remembered you used to like lavish.” He murmurs, sliding out of the cab, giving Whizzer his hand, to pull himself out by.

“Now and then.”

He doesn’t offer his arm again, as they head in, but he holds the door. But he touches the small of Whizzer’s back, _low_ , and gets a smile tossed his way, _warm_. He gives his name, they’re ushered out of the way, a quiet and intimate table. Perhaps not the quietest or most intimate, but it’s enough and it’s theirs, and there’s an air so familiar and sweet to Whizzer and how he smiles and how he moves.

The waiter is a presence Marvin had not thought to account for. The waiter is present and Marvin cannot make himself move around the table, in front of the waiter, to pull out Whizzer’s chair.

Whizzer does not need his chair pulled out, but he would like it, Marvin thinks. He likes attention, he always has. To be pretty, to be precious, to be catered to. Which had suited Marvin, to treat him that way, or it would have if he’d had the guts to do it more, and if…

If a lot of things. If he’d been better. Less hung-up. 

The idea of doing these things pleased him, in part because of his hang-ups. Whizzer is tall, athletic, dynamic… Whizzer is a _man_. Which excites him, which had always excited him, the prettiest face in the world didn’t disguise the kind of man Whizzer was, not from the start. A man with hair on his chest, with just enough muscle to make Marvin more than a little self-conscious and more than a little horny. Confident in every physical arena in which Marvin was not-- be it sports, be it sex. Whizzer was… _blessed_. In a word, Whizzer was blessed.

The idea of escorting him and treating him and calling him a pretty boy… maybe _that_ excited because it let Marvin be ‘the man’, and he didn’t know how not to be, and he was afraid to learn, then. Afraid of navigating a world in which he was not _the_ man, merely _a_ man-- or worse, the creeping fear that he would be _less_ a man, if he allowed Whizzer to be more of one. After all, Whizzer’s masculine charms were innate, were his body and its use and how he moved it, were body hair and lean, chiseled muscle and… other gifts. All Marvin had was a pocketbook and a brain, or half of one, and a talent for stomping and grumbling if he didn’t get his way. A masculine gift to be sure, but not a very adult one, not a very charming one. Hard to believe there was much in him then worth sticking it out with, hard to believe-- for so many reasons-- that he was the one to pull the trigger on their relationship. 

He is unused to this, now, how it felt to be out with a man. The terror and the joy, like stepping out of an airplane and forgetting for a moment if you’ve got a parachute. Even when they were at their most open, there was always an act. Always some sneaking around. Always something he couldn’t give. He hates himself for not giving this, for not ignoring the waiter’s presence, for not pulling out Whizzer’s chair.

They order soup, salad, wine. Marvin screws up his courage as their waiter leaves them, he holds out his hand. 

For a moment, Whizzer just looks at him, all false innocence, but he doesn’t push the gag so long that Marvin has to beg. He wonders if it wouldn’t be just like him, and he wonders if he’d mind as much as he might protest. It doesn’t matter, Whizzer’s hand slides home into his own. Like the past two years were a bad dream… and months before. Whizzer’s hand slides into his and he remembers when things were good between them, before they fought to fill a void they couldn’t speak love into. 

Oh, there were good times… early on, there were. If only he had known how to be in love, how to express it, how to share it. If only he had admitted outside of his own secret heart. How to be in love sober and clearheaded and honest, and not just how to sneer around words which could have come earnest. How to apologize in a real way for his faults instead of downing an appropriately manly amount of scotch so that he could fall into him in tears and guilt him into saying all is forgiven. To be needy in only the most calculated and masculine ways. If only he had been a lover, and not a child to pacify. A real lover, a better lover. A kinder and a braver lover.

He brings Whizzer’s hand to his lips, he brings Whizzer in to be kissed. Just across the knuckles, then just the heel of his hand, just a whisper of a touch against his wrist, just the tips of his fingers. He’d forgotten, never could have forgotten, the silk of his skin, how cool beneath his lips and how soft. A boy who took care of himself, a boy who kept himself nice. And the trace of cologne sometimes-- if you got close enough, if he moved past just so in a tight space. He always had a light touch with it, it was always so little you had to get closer, it was always so little it kept you wanting more, until you had your mouth on his neck, and your hands…

“People are going to notice if you suck on my fingers in the middle of the restaurant.” Whizzer teases, perhaps a merciful interruption of this train of thought. 

“I was not _planning_ on sucking on your fingers in the middle of the restaurant.” He keeps hold of the hand in his, which he had been kissing very politely, in fact, but he does lower their joined hands to the table, out of sight between wine list and bread basket. 

“When have you _planned_ anything about us?” A laugh, but one with no nasty edge, no meanness. A little disbelief, perhaps, but… a nice laugh. One he had loved-- does love. Will love.

“I plan. Meticulously. I plan every move.”

“And then _I_ happen. The enemy of plans. I mean did you _plan_ to take someone to bed the night we met? You didn’t even plan on dancing. When I gave you my number, did you plan on calling it?”

“But we talked every night for a month.” He smiles, dreamy. Now there were good times-- on the phone, there was nothing to do _but_ communicate. They were intoxicated with the idea of knowing each other. Nothing yet had the chance to sour. “I told you things I never told anyone else…”

“It was nice. Is it sad if I say it took about two phone calls before I could call you my best friend?”

“In two phone calls you knew things about me my shrink wouldn’t learn for another six months.”

“You used to call me just to tell me you wouldn’t be able to call me.”

“I didn’t want you wondering. Since we got in the habit. Or worry I lost interest.”

“It took you a whole month to ask me out.”

“I was planning. Meticulously. A second date I thought you’d like.”

“A second--” He sucks in a breath, leans back in his chair, like _this_ should stun him. “Second date?”

“Yes. Which turned out to be a bust, as I recall. You made a fuss about being seated near the smoking section and got us kicked out.”

“Honey, that’s not why we got kicked out. I didn’t think it was such a bust. We went back to the same hotel, and ordered room service. I didn’t know-- you thought that was our _second_ date?”

“It was our second time at _that hotel_! What else could it have been?”

“Oh my god, it was our _first_ date, the night we met was not a _date_ , and you-- All this time, I thought you forgot our anniversary.” He claps his free hand over his mouth, he rubs over his jaw, he looks at the ceiling. Drama queen… but hadn’t Marvin liked that about him, some of the time? “I was waiting for flowers, or to hear we had a reservation somewhere, and then you were an ass, and I threw a fit over being ignored… started a big fight on our anniversary-- I almost walked out on our anniversary. I could have walked out on our anniversary-- Well. You stopped me.”

“I thought _you_ \-- I made you a strawberry daiquiri, on our _real_ anniversary. I put on the song we danced to, even though it’s not a good song--”

“You just don’t like disco.”

“I just don’t like _garbage_.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“I made you a strawberry daiquiri on our anniversary and I asked you to dance, you didn’t think that was for a reason?” Marvin gestures expansively, as much as he can with one hand tethered to Whizzer still. “That it was a special occasion? I got you that watch.”

“I said thank you.”

“I thought you didn’t do anniversaries.”

“I said thank you.”

“No, I know. But you didn’t… I don’t know. You weren’t very anniversary-y. I was afraid to push the subject.”

“Anniversary-y, if I tried to play that in Scrabble you’d knock over the board. What kind of sixty-four thousand dollar word is anniversary-y?”

“I don’t knock over the Scrabble board.”

“And Monopoly--” 

“You were stealing money from the bank.” 

“I was the banker, I was skimming off the top. What did you expect? You let me be banker. You know I still wear that watch.”

“Well.”

“You’ve been counting the night we met as a _date_ \--”

“We went to a hotel!”

“That’s called a one-night stand.”

“I don’t do one-night stands. And I got your number.” His confidence falters. “All the phone calls, we weren’t… You didn’t think we were a thing?”

“Friends. Who met on a one-night stand.” Whizzer shrugs. Still… he doesn’t let go of Marvin’s hand. “Not everyone gets my number, if that helps.”

“Good to know I was good enough in bed.” He grumbles.

“You were _lousy_.” He laughs, but again it’s not unkind. “You were wasted on five fuzzy navels.”

“Four fuzzy navels.”

“Five fuzzy navels.”

“It was four fuzzy navels.”

“There’s no way you remember that after three years and counting, it was five fuzzy navels.”

“It was four, and if you asked me to, I could find the receipt.”

Whizzer doubles over laughing this time, his free hand slaps the table, people look. “You kept the _receipt_? You kept the receipt for five fuzzy navels--”

“Four fuzzy navels.”

“-- and a strawberry daiquiri, at the _Paradise Garage_? How were you going to pass _that_ off as a sports bar?” He grins, chin in hand now. It’s that argumentative little asshole grin, and Marvin’s never loved a grin more. How had he ever been angry about that grin?

“I keep receipts, you know that.”

“God, I miss you. You kept the receipt. Sentiment or tax purposes? Don’t answer, I don’t need to know.”

“Maybe both. And how did I get your number, if it wasn’t the sex? Sentiment, or…?”

“Maybe both. I laughed, with you. You didn’t treat me like I was just a gigolo pushing thirty. You needed a friend.”

“You weren’t pushing thirty very hard. You could have been thirty, I wouldn’t have cared. You could have been forty.”

“Ew, don’t even say that, I’m too pretty to be forty.”

“I mean eventually, God willing, everyone’s forty. Is forty so bad?”

“Not for you. You can be forty. You can be fifty.”

“Oh, it’s no great loss? I’m not a beauty?” He teases.

“Better. You’ve got a head of hair that won’t quit. I’ll list the rest of the things you have that won’t quit later.”

Marvin looks at their linked hands. Lying there behind the bread basket. He takes a breadstick with his free hand, catches the way Whizzer looks at him. The laugh has been familiar, but the look is new. 

Well, not the one that comes over him next-- he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. He smirks and he waggles his eyebrows. He squeezes back, when Marvin squeezes his hand-- jostles him a little, playful.

“I’ve been working on things, working through things.” Marvin says, sudden. Because it’s a nice place and he can’t say the other thing he’s thinking. “Trying to find a better… me.”

“Yeah, yeah, so have I.” Whizzer nods, his thumb rubs at Marvin’s hand, their hands are sweaty, holding on too long. He doesn’t want to let him go. “Just… trying to figure out being a grownup. Who’s-- oh, _god_ \-- thirty.”

“Right.” He does not accuse him of rounding down, though he knows he is. “How to live alone.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been thinking about you, a lot.” He admits. Two years ago, he couldn’t make himself vulnerable, without kicking out, childish. Afraid. 

“So have I.” Another nod, his smile pleased. Soft, the way it was under the colored lights on the night they met. Soft, not just because he’s pretty, soft because… Soft, in a way he only ever was in rare moments. A look which frightened and attracted in equal measure once, which was too often quickly shuttered. 

“I… I wish that I had done better by you.” Marvin steels himself, they’ve been noticed. But no one is looking, now, he could steal another kiss. Just to the hand in his. Which he should let go of, one or both of them will need his hand back. It was never so comfortable so long.

“Oh, so do I…” And he shakes his head, and he tugs Marvin’s hand back towards himself. He looks down a moment, half-focused. “We both could have been, sometimes.”

“You know, I-- This whole time, I couldn’t… I couldn’t stop thinking of you.”

“Me, too.” The bitten lip, the come-on in his eyes less like a come-on, or at least less put-on. 

“I couldn’t look at other men.”

“Mm.” Whizzer’s mouth forms a very thin line. His grip on Marvin’s hand loosens. “I thought about you.”

“Sure.” He smiles, somehow, and lets him go.

“Does it mean something, if I though about you, every time?”

“It does.” Something in him softens, warm butter.

And really, they weren’t together. If he didn’t have all of Whizzer when they were together, he can’t ask to have him pine for two years without touch, without love. He deserves love. He is… a force of nature, a fire, a storm, passion incarnate. He had every right to expect monogamy from a man he got a divorce for, but not from the man he kicked out. They’re two different people. It was wrong to try and fit a mold neither of them was made for, and it was wrong… well. But could that be behind them?

“There’s no point going over every failure… but I hope this time around, we fail a little less.” Whizzer says. “I’d like to get it right this time.”

“So would I. I’d like to get things right.”

“I’m kind of sick of all those men who aren’t you.”

“Are you?”

“God yes, they’re all a bore.”

“Because I’ve been through this before--”

“I mean it. This time.”

The waiter comes, the waiter goes. Soup and salad arrive. But Marvin makes no acknowledgment, he’s lost in Whizzer’s eyes. There’s all the honesty he was afraid to ask for, which he always asked for anyway, which Whizzer knew better than to give him too much of. They’d thought they were so smart, withholding pieces of themselves, waiting for someone else to say it first. You could say ‘I love you’ if you said it with a sneer. You could show it if you didn’t speak the words, in just-right gestures that fit the mold they forced themselves to, _he_ forced them to. You could be halfway in it, but you couldn’t want too much, because love was a game and one person always had to lose.

But he doesn’t believe that anymore. And if he could open himself up, if he could do it right this time around… He could take a chance. There’s nothing he’s risking that’s not worth the reward.

“Your soup’s getting cold.” Whizzer says at last, quiet. 

“Your salad’s wilting.”

“I’m saving room for the main course anyway.”

“Give me a crouton.” Marvin grins, leans forward, means to stab at the plate with his own fork, but Whizzer picks up a crouton, holds up a hand.

“Open.” He says.

“People are going to notice if I suck on your fingers in the middle of the restaurant.”

“Open.” Insistent, and sweet. Marvin submits. It’s never felt this easy before. Nothing’s ever felt this easy before.

Whizzer throws the crouton at him. But he makes his shot. And no one else in the restaurant matters, much. Let them stare at two men, laughing, falling back in love.

Realizing he never left it. It’s only been building, until he could accept it.

“Try the soup.” He holds out his spoon, steady, across the table-- steady!-- and watches Whizzer lean forward, sees him try not to laugh. And maybe they’re being ridiculous and maybe he’s acting too young. And maybe he feels things he couldn’t let himself before, and he could excuse himself this. Couldn’t he excuse himself this?

“It’s good.” Whizzer nods-- and he’s not wrong. They both turn to their own starters, they both send glances across the table. “Nice place.”

“I hoped you’d like…”

“Too nice, for a sure thing.”

“Are you? Sure?” Marvin swallows. 

“You weren’t counting on it?” Whizzer’s foot finds his, under the table. A gentle tap, not the kind of indiscretion he remembers. The first time around, Whizzer had been… bold, in public. Demanding, attention-seeking, wild. The constant battles over attention, discretion… 

He’d loved it, he’d hated it… Loved the passion, loved having even a portion of it aimed his way, and yet when it came to how to play things, they didn’t-- couldn’t?-- _wouldn’t_ agree. 

Whizzer gave up a lot, for him. Which was only fair, he gave up a lot, too. But he asked Whizzer to give up all the wrong things, he insisted on so much that didn’t matter. Not really.

“Hoping. I’d hoped a lot. I was… unfair, before, expecting you to be on hand--”

“It was unfair, goading you to keep up that pace.”

“Treating you like you existed to warm my bed--”

“Hoping you’d be jealous if I dangled my affairs over your head. Face it, we’re a match, Marvin.”

“We’re a pair.” He dares a smile. “Kinder, now?”

“Kinder, now. And in case somehow you wondered--”

“I’ve been wondering--”

“I’m something you can be sure of.”

If he only meant going to bed at the end of the night, it would be enough. If he only meant that, it would be enough. But he came to Jason’s little league game and in a minute flat he’d managed more than a season of coaching, and he wants to be kinder, to learn from their mistakes. He wants to be… Marvin’s. Maybe. It’s tremendous, and it’s frightening, and it’s home. 

“Come home with me tonight, then. I’ll make you breakfast in the morning.”

“ _You_?” Whizzer laughs. “Cook for _me_?”

“Don’t get too excited. In two years I’ve learned to make scrambled eggs, or canned soup.” Marvin does as well. It’s an exaggeration, he’s managed a little more, in two years. He makes spaghetti every weekend, and macaroni and cheese. Which is not impressive. Frozen fish sticks and hot dogs on weekends as well, which is less impressive still. But he makes a decent chicken marsala-- or, it’s close to a chicken marsala. It contains both chicken and marsala. And he makes a casserole, which had been the first thing he’d taught himself to make after the canned soup and the spaghetti. Just because he could make one and eat the same thing four or five nights in a row, when he hadn’t felt like learning and he hadn’t felt like eating, which he did over the sink, on weekdays, for longer than he cares to admit. And french toast, again on weekends, because Jason likes french toast. It’s not good french toast. But in two years, he’s developed a decent repertoire, considering what a bear he’d once been about taking a turn in the kitchen every once in a while.

“Scrambled eggs and canned soup. Breakfast of champions.” Whizzer’s foot lingers a little longer against his. “I’d be a fool to pass you up.”

“It’s not a hotel…”

“Honey, whose side are you on?”

“I don’t know. Sides… I’m done with sides. How about our side? Everyone wins.”

“So don’t try and talk me out of it.”

“We should get through the main course, first. Dessert, if you want it.”

“Dessert.” Whizzer licks his lips. “If I want it?”

“Anything you want.”

“Don’t make promises you’re not going to keep.” He wags a finger. “I can think of a whole lot of anything.”

“Anything.”

He can remember a fight-- a series of fights-- about what Whizzer wanted, about what Marvin wanted, about compromises Marvin was still too afraid to make, if you could call agreeing to something you wanted a compromise. About hang-ups… It was a fight that they sometimes put on hold and started up again, maybe, a single long one. Whizzer’s disdainful accusations and his hurt… hurt Marvin hadn’t known how to address, and so he had ignored it, he’d feared further puncturing his sense of masculinity if he had asked about his hurt. So they’d let it go… but it wasn’t right to. He’d thought there was no right answer, then. 

For a second chance at bliss, he’s ready to let go of a few hang-ups. He’s ready to want things he told himself he didn’t, he does. He’s ready to want the things Whizzer’s asked him for, that he thought he had to refuse. He was older, he had money-- less, after the divorce-- he was supposed to be… something. _A man_ , but what the hell did that mean?

“Things you used to do, with other men… that I couldn’t give you then.” He murmurs, stares into his soup. “Would you want them now?”

Whizzer’s hand crosses the table once more, he leans forward to be able to touch Marvin’s, where it rests next to his bowl of soup, which he doesn’t taste.

“Just say when.”

“Tonight, if you’re interested.”

“I’m interested.” And his hand closes around Marvin’s, warm. Strong. Sure.

Why couldn’t he have just let himself like that, the first time around? He’d been so afraid of what that thrill meant about him. And Whizzer let him win, he knows, little tussles in bed, little power struggles-- the sexy kind, the fun kind, the good kind. Whizzer let him win, because he’d known Marvin well enough to know it wouldn’t stay sexy and it wouldn’t stay good and it wouldn’t stay fun, if he had to deal with what he really wanted. And he’d have to deal with what he really wanted, if he couldn’t pretend they were about an even match. He couldn’t handle his own wants, his own desires, he couldn’t handle everything Whizzer was, he’d put him in a box and called him merely ‘pretty’, ‘pretty’ was convenient. ‘Pretty’ was easy.

He likes him so much more, seeing all of him again. The parts he’d been afraid to love, once. He wants them.

“I wish…”

“Shush.” Whizzer smiles. Whizzer dazzles. Whizzer knows. 

Enough.

“Well, I do.” He shrugs, turning his hand in Whizzer’s, holding on. 

“Your soup’s going cold.”

“I’m saving room for the main course.”

Whizzer snorts, taking his hand back. He uses his spoon as a catapult, lobbing a crouton into Marvin’s soup.

“Really?”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“You little prick--” He laughs.

“Nothing little about me.” Whizzer bobs his eyebrows. 

“This is a nice restaurant, Whizzer, and I can’t begin to tell you all the things I’m going to do about it when I get you home, let alone do anything about it right now, while all these nice people are trying to enjoy their dinners.” 

This time, he initiates the touch, their feet beneath the table, the tablecloth not so long as to hide them from view, but certainly sufficient to shield them from a casual glance. Who would get down on the floor to check? He doesn’t slip out of his shoe, to travel up Whizzer’s calf, nothing like that, but he makes his point. 

“Well?” Whizzer meets him in kind, nudges gentle at his ankle.

“I’ve missed this. We used to have fun.”

“You are dodging the question of what you’re going to do about it.”

“ _A nice restaurant_.” He says, fishing the crouton out and laying it on the edge of Whizzer’s plate. “Whatever you want.”

“I want a steak.”

“Is that it?”

“This is a _nice restaurant_ , Marvin.” He bats his eyes. “I can’t begin to tell you all the things I want to do to you, while _all these nice people_ are trying to enjoy their dinners.”

Marvin motions for their waiter, and orders for them both-- throws in a strawberry daiquiri, which makes Whizzer smile and shake his head.

“The Paradise Garage was _not_ our first date.”

“I got it bad for you there, though. And I remembered your drink order.”

“Oh, hopeless romantic, you.” He rolls his eyes, but he’s blushing, it feels like a win. 

Could he be a hopeless romantic? Anything seems possible. 

“If the Paradise Garage wasn’t our first date, I hope that means we don’t have to go back to reminisce.”

Whizzer throws his head back to laugh, this time, brief but loud. People look-- let them. Let them! Suddenly the idea is a thrill, not a terror! Let the whole restaurant turn and look and see Marvin making the most beautiful man in the room laugh, his head thrown back, the line of his throat elegant. The most beautiful man in the city, let them see that Marvin makes him laugh.

“I’d much rather-- isn’t this more our speed, or couldn’t it be?” He continues, more earnest. “You deserve nice places, even if you’re a sure thing, you should have nice things. Not to buy your affections, just… if you’d like them. I’d rather take you out someplace nice as a sure thing than buy you.”

“I’m a sure thing for you. You don’t have to buy me-- Marv, you never did. You were charming. You were good-- and when things stopped being good, so help me… I mean, don’t get me wrong, I was mercenary when I met you. I looked at your shoes and I looked at your watch.”

“I’m lucky you put more stock in the watch than the shoes…”

“You are. And also, you made me laugh. You made me laugh. And you made me… sad. Thinking about you all alone at that bar, hiding from your wife, no experiments under your belt… putting away those fuzzy navels and getting lonelier. And neither of us had to be lonely. And… you listened, on the phone. I could tell you things… I could tell you what my life had been like and you were there.” He swallows. “I’m sorry I never told you. I mean I liked presents. Still do. But I-- you never bought me.”

“I wanted you charmed. And I didn’t think I was enough, to charm you.”

“You’re so charming.”

“I didn’t think I was so charming, for you. Plenty of charming men out there, plenty of eyes on you…”

“Plenty of presents, too. Plenty of men with money. Only one you, though. I-- god, I’m sorry I couldn’t… I could just stick with you. You meant something, but I’d never… no one ever meant something to me before, I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“Neither did I. I mean, I’d… I was married. That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement for me, is it? I didn’t know what I was doing with _you_. Or how good I had it. I had it good with you.”

Whizzer smiles at him, shakes his head, looks at his salad and nudges at Marvin’s foot. His hand rests within reach once more. Easy to reach out and cover it with his own, to slide two fingers along the back of his hand, just under his cuff. A million little memories flood him, running fingertips over Whizzer’s skin, courting his good graces by starting with the lightest touch, a plea. A tease. Sliding up his wrist and then up his arm. Sometimes with a few sweet words, sometimes in silence, but always…

Always gentle, when Whizzer was in no mood to fight their way into a fuck that had teeth. He knew how to court him… though perhaps towards the end, they’d both forgotten this, gentleness. But once, he’d known how to repair a poor mood with gentleness. How to glide over his skin, the patterns which would reduce him to putty in Marvin’s hands, which would make him smile, make him warm… He knew how to put the light in his eyes, once. 

“I had it good with you.” He repeats. “Once.”

“We had it good, once.”

“I couldn’t leave a good thing alone.”

“I didn’t know a good thing when I had it.”

“Be my good thing. Whizzer, be good with me.”

“Marvin…”

He shifts his hand to take Marvin’s, to pull it across the table to his lips, warm lips. And soft, never chapped. A boy who takes care of himself… Maybe people stare, maybe they don’t. Whizzer kisses his hand. He has it good.

The conversation is less personal, over the main course. They need a little recovery time from so much honest at once. They talk about what they’ve been doing over the past couple years, about work, about anything significant. About Jason. Whizzer asks about Jason, how he’s doing, if he’s excited about school, if he’s excited about his bar mitzvah.

Well, all right, so the conversation’s not impersonal, either. 

And it’s not like Whizzer could have known.

Except apparently he and Jason have been in touch.

His kid likes Whizzer that much, to call him after the break-up… Has it been as hard on him, in his own way? How had he never realized how much of a parent Whizzer had become? He’d been around long enough. And he’d been good with him. 

“I’d better… I’d better get this right.” Marvin ventures. “Not sure Jason would forgive me if I messed things up a second time. You, uh… you reach him. He’s such a hard kid to reach. Not because of the divorce, I mean he’s always been… you know, he’s a _smart_ kid, but he’s hard. He’s in his head so much.”

“So are you. I don’t think he’s hard to get to… just different, in his own way. But we grew up different in our way. We all look at the world sideways. It’s just… figuring out his angle, and turning around until you see what he sees.”

“I’ll try and do that. I don’t know… I’m too rigid.”

“And so’s he. And that’s okay. You’ll work it out. You’ll learn how to bend. And so will he. God, at least you’re _trying_ , Marvin, that’s the most important thing. I mean my father never tried.”

“You’re good with him. Mendel’s good with him. And I’m lousy.”

“And so’s your ex-wife. You know why it’s easy for me and Mendel to be good with Jason? We’re the two people who haven’t had the chance to let him down. We never started out on pedestals. We had to be patient from the start and we had to earn his trust. It’s different.”

“So we’re screwed.”

“No. You just have to start over.”

“I thought I was. I mean I am trying… and I just never know… I never know if it’s working. It felt like we were… like I got through to him and he got through to me, but this year’s hard.”

“Ah.” Whizzer nods. “The bar mitzvah.”

“Were we like this when we were that age? Were you?”

“I had the option. Half.” He shrugs. “I could have not wanted one and only disappointed half of the family-- well, on that count. I don’t know, I mean… what were you like?”

“I was like Jason.” He admits. “Okay, okay.”

“Then think about what you’d say to yourself, when you were difficult, because you were going to be thirteen and it was going to be a big fucking deal. If you thought you were getting through to him before, it’s probably because you were. And right now he’s stressed. Just like we were, when we were twelve and a half and the world was grabbing us by each arm and pulling in two different directions.”

“You’re good at this. I mean…” He sighs. There’s still so much he doesn’t know how to say. “Thanks.”

Whizzer just shrugs.

“Did you want dessert?” Marvin asks him. 

“Maybe next time.”

Next time. He smiles. Next time.


	2. My Wife Thinks I'm At A Sports Bar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flashing back to the first first date-- by Marvin's reckoning.
> 
> They do not meet in a sports bar.

“My wife thinks I’m at a sports bar.” Marvin says, to the man who’s just dropped into the space beside him at the bar. “I told her I needed to get out. I promised I wouldn’t talk to any women. I’ve had two fuzzy navels and my wife thinks I’m at a sports bar.”

“Two fuzzy navels, huh?” The man leans forward, smiles. The low light is soft, a swirl of color that plays over his face, the man is soft, pretty beneath those lights. Mostly backlit, but where light touches his face, he is… something else. Dramatically chiseled cheekbones and a jawline Marvin wants to _lick_ , but still something so soft. Soft lips, soft eyes. Cute little nose. Pretty boy, he can’t even be thirty. But Marvin didn’t get to do this at thirty, he didn’t have the guts.

“Three fuzzy navels.” Marvin slams his glass down. “I’ve had three fuzzy navels and my wife thinks I’m at a sports bar, and I think I’m going to kiss a boy.”

“I’ve heard better lines, but from a man on three fuzzy navels, not bad.”

“Oh-- sorry.” He reconsiders the fourth fuzzy navel he was going to ask for, he reconsiders his words. “I didn’t mean to speak with so much candor, and you’re a perfect stranger and you have a perfect face. And I didn’t mean any of that to be a line, it’s just that--”

“Your wife thinks you’re at a sports bar.”

“And she’s at home with the kid.”

He tilts his head back. “A married man, with a kid. I’m going to kiss a married man with a kid, which is probably wrong of me, but it’s probably a lot wrong-er of you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I’d like to. Buy me a drink?”

“Would you like a fuzzy navel?” Marvin asks, at the same time as the man says--

“Anything but a fuzzy navel.” And he laughs, _they_ laugh, when’s the last time he’s laughed? Really?

“Anything you want.”

“Strawberry daiquiri”

And he catches Marvin’s hand, he catches Marvin’s wrist, before he can call the bartender over. Looks him over.

“You have too nice a watch to dress this badly.”

“You’re the one who wanted to kiss me.” He shrugs, and watches the man laugh, and suddenly everything is beautiful, where it wasn’t before. He’s making this man laugh and the whole damn world is beautiful. For once, Marvin has forgotten to feel ashamed of Marvin.

“Order me that drink and then order me another one and see where you get. So help me, I like that you’re married and I like that you’re older. And if you buy me that drink, and I like how you kiss, then I might take you into the alley or the bathroom and blow your mind.”

“Oh-- oh, no.”

“No?” He raises an eyebrow.

“I mean, not in an alley. Or a bathroom. A hotel? I’ve had three fuzzy navels-- can I get another fuzzy navel, and a strawberry daiquiri?-- and we could go, I could pay for a room.”

“You want to pay for a motel?”

“A hotel.”

“A _motel_?”

“A _hotel_.”

“I’ve been in some rooms you wouldn’t like more than an alley. Between the three, I’d wager the bathroom has the least piss. Here, more people use it for this.”

“A room you _don’t_ rent by the hour. A _hotel_.”

And the flash of surprise is… nice. And maybe it’s nicer to impress. And maybe if he had anything at all going for him, he’d do anything else to impress, except he’s never had a whole lot going for him, and he doesn’t know what he has going for him that a handsome boy would stick around for. Except this.

Which is pathetic, he knows, and he has good qualities. Sort of. Kind of. Somewhere. That the most beautiful man he’s ever almost met would not care about. 

The drinks are set before them and the light is soft and colorful and the man is breathtaking and so is his laugh, and…

“My wife thinks I’m at a sports bar.”

“Yeah. But you want a room that doesn’t rent by the hour.”

Marvin shrugs. “I guess I can’t stay. I guess that’d be… difficult to explain. But I only said I wouldn’t talk to other women. So… I’m not breaking a promise.”

“You don’t have to rationalize it to me. I’m the homewrecker.”

“Presumptuous of you.” He laughs. “I wouldn’t call it wrecked after four fuzzy navels and a night in a hotel.”

He knocks back half his daiquiri. “We haven’t gotten to the hotel yet. Just wait.”

“I’ve had four fuzzy navels, I’m just-- I’m beginning to realize I am not in a sports bar. My wife thinks I’m in a sports bar.”

“Do you want me to talk about sports, or do you want me to go to a hotel with you?”

“I hate sports.”

“Does your wife know you hate sports?”

“She doesn’t know I like fuzzy navels.” He tilts his head to one side, and hopes he looks remotely charming, though he doesn’t put a lot of faith in it.

“I think you need to be cut off on the fuzzy navels.” He takes Marvin by the wrist again, as if to stop him ordering a fifth drink he wasn’t going to ask for. There’s a line somewhere where liquid courage becomes more hindrance than help. He’s as brave as he’s ever going to get, but if he can’t get it up, then the most beautiful man in the world won’t be very interested in going out for another drink.

“I’m-- I wasn’t talking about the drinks. That time.”

“Never had a guy into my navel before. I’m a lot more interesting a few inches down.”

“Oh, god, I’m not ready to think about inches.” Marvin contemplates a fifth fuzzy navel, and he contemplates the navel of the beautiful man he’s with. And whether or not he’s fuzzy. He does not contemplate his own navel, which sounds like something his shrink would advise. It’s not nearly as interesting. 

And the man’s shirt is open enough that he can say he is, yes, decently so-- at least his chest. Marvin is not, himself, fuzzy. Marvin is…

Entranced.

“Do you want to dance?”

You can’t do that at a sports bar. He’s not sure he can anywhere. But he lets himself be led, and the floor is crowded, and their bodies press close together, there’s heat. The music pounds and it’s far too loud but the feeling of being pressed close to a beautiful boy is electric.

“I’m Whizzer.” He whispers. Marvin’s sure he’s misheard. 

“I beg your pardon?”

“I like a man who begs.” He leans back with a grin. “I said I’m Whizzer. That’s my name.”

“Marvin.” 

“Well. Very nice to meet you, Marvin.” Whizzer purrs, direct into his ear. A hand on his chest and one on his hip. 

Marvin doesn’t know where to put his hands. He didn’t know where to put his hands with a woman, he doesn’t know where to put them with a man. They hover at Whizzer’s sides. What kind of name is Whizzer, anyway? Does he call him Whizzer in bed, does he take him to a hotel? What will they do there, will he finally learn…?

He’s tried so long not to think. Though he had thought… he’d thought so much he was ashamed of, times he’d forced himself to go through with it. Imagined a man’s naked body, a man’s big hands, strong like the hands at his chest, his hip. A man, tall, like Whizzer is tall… with broad shoulders, like the shoulders he moves his hands to. And a man’s narrow hips, and a man’s…

_Cock_. 

He is going to put his hand on Whizzer’s cock, if they go to a hotel, he is going to touch him, he is going to make him come. And maybe… though he’s hardly dared imagine, outside of his dreams. He and Trina have sex in the early mornings the most, when he wakes up still hard from his dreams. Dreams about men, with pretty faces and hard muscles and hard cocks. They have sex and she lies on her back and he does the work but it always feels like something she does to him, he always feels outside his body. He could love her if he never had to do that, he could care for her if he wasn’t undressed, if she didn’t put her arms around him, if he was never pressed close to her, all soft and… He could have been a good husband if the duties of a husband never required that of him. But he would still want this.

He dreams about using his mouth, but he doesn’t really know how. He’s only dared look at pictures, of women with men. Pretended he was looking at pretty painted-up faces and soft hair, soft shoulders, soft breasts. Pretended to be focused on the open mouths like red-orange jewels, and looked his fill at hard, waiting cocks until his own would swell.

Imagine a beautiful boy’s face waiting for him, or imagine himself on his knees. Lean against the shower wall with one hand working over his own and the fingers of the other shoved hard in his mouth until he gagged on his hand. Got himself off and felt good right up until he felt sick instead.

And sometimes, those other dreams, dreams he dare not think of even now, as Whizzer drags his hand down a toned chest, guides him to touch. Parting the unbuttoned vee of his shirt, crisp and white and a circus of colors beneath the lights on the dance floor, even more than at the bar. 

Warm skin, firm muscle, half-coarse curls of hair. A man’s body… the first time he’s ever touched a man’s body like this…

Whizzer leans down, his lips against Marvin’s neck, he can feel the vibrations of his chuckle as he presses closer, as he continues to guide Marvin to touch him… 

“You like me, Marvin?”

“Yes…”

“You wanna kiss me, Marvin?”

“Yes…”

“Touch me. Kiss me. Put your hands _all_ over me-- just like everyone else, look around. Just like everyone else, touch me.”

There are men pressed close all around them, hands everywhere. Marvin dares, Marvin squeezes Whizzer’s ass, feels him rock forward, his face hot when Whizzer finds him already growing hard just from this, at the grin he flashes when he pulls back again.

“I-- I’ve never…”

“God, you’re sexy.” He says, and he bites at Marvin’s lower lip, _tugs_. 

It cuts through the uncertainty. Marvin surges forward and kisses him, and they _fit_. He’s kissed Trina, of course, before. Kissing her like this made him feel sick inside, made part of him want to die, but it was his duty to, wasn’t it? There were certain duties a man owed his wife and she’d been obliging enough to help him when he’d thought he could try to get past this and be with her, and he’d got her knocked up and then he’d been stuck with her, stuck kissing her and pretending to like it, and wishing he was _dead_ every time his tongue was in her mouth and every time his, every time he was in her, every time…

But Whizzer is different. He holds onto Marvin hard, a hand around the back of his neck, a hand slipping down to his ass, grinding against him on the dance floor and their tongues… their tongues feeling _good_. He feels like he’s coming to _life_.

He buries a hand in Whizzer’s hair, tugs a little and feels the way he reacts. 

He’s fire, consuming him, Whizzer is fire and Marvin’s been waiting to burn. He never has before, not in waking life, not like this.

“You wanna get out of here?” His hands drift down to settle at Marvin’s hips again. Tucks himself in close, the heat of his body… “Fuck, I love how bad you want me.”

“Oh, _please_ , everyone must want _you_.”

“Sure. But I love how bad _you_ want me. If you want to know a secret?”

“I want to know a secret.” He nods.

“Somehow I think I want you just about as bad.” And he leans back with a grin that’s full of wonder and promise, a miracle of a grin, and Marvin would follow him anywhere just for one night.

No. That’s not right. Marvin’s not here to follow some pretty boy anywhere. He’s going to _take_ him somewhere, though. He can take a pretty boy somewhere, it’s… Somehow it’s different. It’s different from wanting to follow him. 

Whizzer’s confidence is addictive, his grin a beacon, his body that of a young adonis… Anyone might follow him to the ends of the earth, and what of it? To be the man to trace over those cheekbones, that jaw? To learn the secrets dancing behind his eyes, to know the bliss of those full lips? To know his body… isn’t it okay to want to follow him, to know his body?

The men on the dance floor, who touch and kiss and undulate around them, who smile and laugh and reach for each other, and move alone or in pairs or in little groups with arms around each other or flung into the air, in a great clothed orgy to the relentless beat of the music, the men around them all seem to know something he’s never had the chance to learn. 

He doesn’t belong _here_ , but he doesn’t belong where he was, either. To be entirely fair, he doesn’t think he’s ever belonged anywhere in his life. He has always been an idea, a concept in other people’s lives, and not a person to be known, or loved. Son, friend, sweetheart, husband, a placeholder to project ideals upon, which he would fall short of in reality. And… and one more role, which he knows he is failing in, which he cannot _think_ about failing in, which is worse than failing as a son or as a husband, which he knows he has done and everyone knows he has done. But some pedestals are higher than others and the fall could kill you.

He exists in a fog and people draw all over him and make him what he’s supposed to be and he doesn’t want to be what he’s supposed to be but he can’t in an instant give it all up. There are things he thinks he could be allowed to do in secret with a beautiful man who wants to let him, whose ass his hands are upon. Who whispers in his ear that he wants to tear his shirt off, which he cannot let him do and which he should not want. But being kissed used to make him wish he was dead and now it makes him feel alive, and that’s something. Even if he ran away now-- without taking him somewhere, without touching him, without touching his _cock_ , which he has resolved to do-- and if he never looked back, he would know this now for certain. And it wouldn’t stop the dreams of wanting.

“So are we gonna get out of here?” Whizzer asks, as the music changes. It changes to something just as driving and head-splitting and lousy, and getting out is attractive for a variety of reasons. Whizzer is attractive for a variety of reasons.

Marvin tries to narrow the field.

“Yes. Right. Hotel.” He nods. They drag each other free of the club, he wonders how many men notice, if he’s still half-hard leaving the club, and just from dancing. Even before being kissed, just being flirted with and pressed close to and whispered to and moved with, he’d been getting hard, and he’s still hard now, enough that he’s afraid it’s noticeable and he’s afraid to look down and check. 

He can’t help wondering what they think, if they see. Does it make him an object of ridicule? Of lust? Or envy, that he’s been aroused by and is leaving with the most beautiful man in the club.

Whizzer, at least, notices. He’d noticed it when it was pressed against him and he notices it now.

“You gonna hail a cab with that thing?” He teases, he reaches down, he grabs. The briefest squeeze through the front of Marvin’s trousers, and a _look_ , heated as much as amused, a silent laugh that shakes his chest, a lick of the lips.

“If you want a free ride straight to jail. I’d rather go to a hotel.”

“Not into getting handcuffed, Marvin?”

“Why do you keep saying my name?”

“I’m getting used to it. I want to remember what I’m going to be moaning.”

“Oh.” For a moment he has no idea how to respond. His brain feels sluggish and his face feels hot, he’s not sure whether to blame the drinks or the man. “In that case… oh. I am-- I am not into handcuffs. _Whizzer_.”

Whizzer laughs-- silent, again, softer, he smiles down at his shoes and then looks up, tosses his head just so, his hair moves just so. “Noted. No handcuffs.”

“What kind of name is ‘Whizzer’, anyway?”

“Mine.”

“Your parents didn’t name you ‘Whizzer’.”

“I don’t use the name my _parents_ gave me. They took back everything else, why not that, too? Well, I’m stuck with the last name, but… but fuck them, I guess.”

“Oh.”

“Shit, that’s candid--”

“I don’t talk to mine, either.” He says quickly.

“Do they know?”

“No one knows. Except you.”

“And a thousand strangers at the Paradise Garage. Who saw you get hard for me.”

“A thousand people didn’t see me get hard. Maybe a few.” His face heats all over again. He’s trying to look for a cab. Whizzer gropes him again. “Would you stop?”

“If you want me to. Marvin.”

“Save it for the hotel. Whizzer.”

“Why don’t you talk to your parents, if they don’t know? Presumably they didn’t give you the boot.”

“Did yours? Sorry, that’s--”

“We had a blow-up about it. They caught me in the act, with my math tutor. So I didn’t have to explain why I was still failing math.”

“I’m good at math. If you’re into that.” He volunteers. Realizes a beat too late that that’s probably not what Whizzer is into. 

Whizzer laughs, and toys with his shirt collar, and looks at him like he might kiss him, out on the street, but he doesn’t. 

“You’re cute.” He says instead. 

They get a cab.

Whizzer hangs back while Marvin arranges the room, pretends he belongs there, lingers in the lobby checking the day’s paper then moves confidently towards the elevators alone, where they meet.

When the doors close on them and they’re alone, Whizzer is on him. It’s a mercy the corridor’s empty when the elevator doors slide open again. They stumble to the door and they fumble with the key, and Whizzer grabs for his ass with a groan. 

“This tuchus, I wanna bury my _face_ in it.”

“Please don’t.” Marvin says. Marvin stops. “Tuchus?”

“Tuchus. Not sexy enough?”

“No-- I mean-- no? I mean--”

“Because obviously your first thought, when I said ‘my name’s Whizzer’, was ‘funny, you don’t _look_ Jewish’?”

He laughs. Someone tugs someone else close as they make it through the door and into the room, nice room. 

“I mean it is very important to me that if I’m going to cheat on my wife with a man, he should be the nice Jewish boy my parents would… still never approve of.”

“Does half work for you?”

“Which half?”

Whizzer gestures to indicate, Marvin laughs again. 

“Seriously, though.” He says, tugging Marvin’s tie loose. “If your wife won’t eat your ass, I will.”

“I don’t-- That’s not-- I prefer my ass remain… un-eaten.”

“Mm, shame. Just the blowjob, then.” And he licks his lips, again, and how is he so confident about this, so casual?

“Oh. Great, yes.”

“Does your wife--?”

“Don’t talk to me about my wife, I don’t want to think about my wife.” He groans. “I want to forget about my wife. She’s not as pretty as you.”

“I’m not wife material.” Whizzer tells him, but Marvin can’t pay attention to what he’s saying when they’re working each other’s shirts off and he’s seeing Whizzer’s chest, his abs. _Fit_.

“That’s okay, I’m a lousy husband.” He runs his hands over that body. “Case in point, my wife thinks I’m at a sports bar.”

Whizzer pushes him towards the bed. “Nicest sports bar I’ve ever been to.”

Whizzer is tall, Whizzer is strong, Whizzer could throw him down on the bed and the thought of it has him hard again, everything that ebbed away on the cab ride flowing back. 

He shouldn’t want that, he knows. He shouldn’t look at Whizzer’s broad chest and his _arms_ and want to be…

_Fucked_ , Marvin? He can practically hear the whisper in his ear, _do you want me to_ fuck _you, Marvin_? 

Whizzer grins at him and looks him over-- his body’s not bad. Not great, but not bad. Not like Whizzer, who seems to be an impossible ideal, but Whizzer looks at his chest and his stomach and grins at him and licks his lips and gives him a playful shove, he lands on his back on the bed and looks up to see Whizzer undo his belt, his fly, to see…

“Oh _god_ …” Marvin whines, there’s no dignity in it. Oh, _fuck_. What a _man_ , what’s he supposed to _do_ with it all? There’s a lot more of that than he thinks he can fit in his mouth. He really wants a man in his mouth. Even more than that other thing he shouldn’t want, he wants this, right now, desperately.

It’s all he can think about, as Whizzer continues stripping him, as he shifts them up properly onto the bed. He knew he was lucky, he knew he was lucky talking the most beautiful man he’s ever met into coming to a hotel with him, but he couldn’t have dreamed of being lucky like this.

“You like what you see?”

“ _Yes_.”

“Mm, _good_.” He purrs, spreads his hands over Marvin’s chest, straddles Marvin’s thighs. “I like you better this way.”

“Liking you?”

“Naked.” he laughs. It’s deep and warm and it goes straight to Marvin’s cock. “But that, too. I do like a man to fall at my feet. _Want_ me.”

“I’m not interested in your feet.”

“No, you’re interested in my navel. Fuzzy enough?”

Marvin bites his lip, traces a fingertip around the navel in question before following the trail of fuzz in question down. This is it. This is his first time, this is Whizzer’s cock-- which he had not realized would be bigger than his, is it okay that it’s bigger than his? Is it okay if he likes that it’s bigger?-- and his hand, and he’s never touched a boy before, not really. A _man_. He used to hide from gym class showers and seas of nudity, from temptation. He used to hyperventilate. He used to savor the briefest brush of someone against him in the jostle of a crowd, of someone coming up too close behind or sidling past his hip, of the idea of being near to a man knowing he could never, he could never, he could never…

Whizzer fills his hand. Whizzer fills his head. He’s stroking Whizzer off and he’s having the time of his life.

“What do I do?”

“You’re doing it.”

“With my mouth?” Marvin presses. 

“ _Fuck_ …”

“That’s the idea.” He scoots along the bed, gets himself at eye-level with what he’s doing, mouth level. “Show me?”

“Kiss me. Don’t move too fast.” Whizzer cautions, his hand gentle in Marvin’s hair. Different, from all the haste, the grabbing and the squeezing and the shoving. Marvin had liked the grabbing and the squeezing and the shoving… but he likes this, too.

So he kisses, licks his lips and starts his way up. And it’s nicer close-up. He’d wondered, before, if it wouldn’t be… if the things which he was overcome with lust thinking about in theory would disgust him if he ever dared put theory into practice, but he likes him so much more the closer he gets. He likes the way he _smells_ , clean. Barely a hint of cologne. A little sweat, from dancing, and the crush of the crowd, but not enough to overpower the cleanness of him. He must have showered between work and going out. He must have looked good in the shower. Like this, but wet.

“Suck you?” He asks, between kisses laid to the head, kisses wet and overeager.

“Not yet-- want this to last…” Whizzer groans. Runs both hands through Marvin’s hair, walking the fine line between rough and tender.

“Not yet.” An echo, another wet kiss.

“Now use your tongue…”

“Fuck, you’re really… big.” Marvin sighs, and licks him, root to tip, and again. Again and again and again and again and again… The sounds Whizzer makes are deep, his hands are strong… and his cock, his cock… he’s mouth-watering. 

Marvin holds onto his hips, gives himself permission to go wild, until he’s tugged back.

“Let me show you, Marvin, just lie back...”

“Whizzer…” He sighs, lets himself be moved. The name comes easier than he thought it would, to his lips. It suits him, he couldn’t be anyone else. It suits him, mover that he is. It suits him, Marvin wants to _howl_ it.

“You look good on your back, I could keep you all night.” 

And his hand trails down from Marvin’s chest, down to wrap around his cock, as he moves to put himself in position, to lick, perhaps to _suck_...

“Wish you could--” He starts, intoxicated by the very idea, being Whizzer’s all night, being Whizzer’s in their hotel room, being Whizzer’s until dawn, he knows he can’t but he wants so badly, and then the teasing probe of a tongue, pointed, just at the underside of his cockhead, it robs him of reason. “ _Whizzer_ \--”

“Hush.” He grins, and takes him in.

“Oh _god_ \--”

He bobs his head, takes a little more. He goes slow, using his hands, also, before drawing back. Leaves him desperately wanting more, leaves him utterly enraptured by the sight of those lips. They’d been sweet enough before, so full and so rosy, but now they’re wet and swollen and deep raspberry pink, and no lips have ever been more tempting.

“Like that…” He moves up to kiss Marvin’s lips, which Marvin isn’t sure he should like. It’s a silly thing to get hung up on, he’d had Whizzer’s cock in his mouth, why balk at kissing after Whizzer’s done the same for him?

But then, he doesn’t know how any of this works. He just knows he’s in bed with the most beautiful man he’s ever seen, and kissing him is easy.

He runs his hands through Whizzer’s hair until it’s in disarray, in disarray he still looks perfect. He kisses his throat, and nips at his ear, and feels like swooning under roaming hands. 

“Think you can do it like that, Marvin?” Whizzer asks, a challenge in his tone. And damned if Marvin doesn’t love a challenge to rise to. 

“Oh, I’m a quick study.” He promises, sucking a hickey into place. Just high enough to see if he didn’t do his collar up… He’s never left a hickey. He’d liked the notion of marking someone as his, back when it was the sort of thing kids did, falling in love for the first time. It was just a matter of never being with someone he wanted to spend much time putting his mouth on, before.

“Mm, mm-hm. That’s right, you never needed a math tutor.” Whizzer teases, but Marvin doesn’t rise to tease back-- it occurs to him he could jab back with _something_ , but he’s not sure what would be too mean, and he’s distracted by the faint hint of cologne, oakmoss and musk and something sweet, something too faded to chase down. 

“What’s that cologne?” He asks, rolling them over, grinding against Whizzer. Feeling Whizzer’s body under his-- and he’s felt a body beneath his before, but never like this. He’s so used to cringing from sex, but instead he feels… light. He feels wonderful. And Whizzer feels wonderful under him. And Whizzer smells wonderful.

“Pour Homme. Comme moi.”

“Comme toi.” He laughs, bites Whizzer’s neck. Just hard enough to make him moan, before he’s gentling him with kisses, reveling in the grip Whizzer has on his hair. 

“Speaking of ‘come’...”

“Oh, qu’est-ce que vous voulez?”

“Mm, you’ve outstripped my schoolboy french, I’m afraid.”

“Were you too busy fooling around with that tutor, too?”

“Worse. I was the tutor.” He says, with just the right note of self-deprecation to send Marvin into a gale of helpless laughter. “Am I ‘toi’ or ‘vous’?”

“I’m figuring that out. I mean, we have only just met… but you are naked underneath me. Mm, and you don’t actually speak french… Mais… vous-etes pour _un_ homme.” He rolls their hips together to punctuate the sentiment.

“Which complicates matters. Or renders them moot.” Whizzer gets his teeth around Marvin’s lower lip again and tugs, slow, before releasing him. “Marvin… I would like you to stop speaking french and suck me off now.”

“Your wish is my command.”

The sound Whizzer makes, low and half-voiced, could send a man reeling. Marvin obliges. Marvin reels.

He forgets to worry about what anything means, he forgets to worry at all. He gets his mouth around Whizzer, there’s so much of Whizzer. Tries to do it the way Whizzer had done it and not like girls in pictures he always found it half-uncomfortable to look at. He keeps his lips over his teeth, which is what Whizzer had done, which seems smart, only it means he can’t use them to do anything about the way his mouth is literally watering, and he hadn’t realized how messy this was, how much drool, how wet, how…

Filthy.

How deliciously, delightfully filthy. He’s never loved anything more than he loves this, he’s never loved being himself more than he does right now, with Whizzer in his mouth and his jaw aching, and Whizzer saying ‘use your tongue’ and ‘use your hands’ and Whizzer playing with his hair. Whizzer moaning every time he manages to swallow around him and the sound he makes when he pushes in too far-- the head of his cock feeling huge when it hits the back of Marvin’s throat, Marvin gags, Whizzer swears…

How many times do you suck a beautiful boy’s cock before you’re allowed to ask him to love you? Are you allowed at all? Do men, do other men--? Do they want the things he wants? What does Whizzer want? To get sucked off, but beyond that?

Marvin shouldn’t be thinking about how many times he should or will or needs to suck Whizzer’s cock-- he wants it in him-- or whether he could like him much at all, he should be thinking about Trina, who used to think he was at a sports bar and now either she’s sleeping or suspecting something. But how can she suspect when he’s never once looked at another woman since he met her? She couldn’t suspect this.

Marvin shouldn’t be thinking about what the sunrise would look like from the sunny soft hotel room, how Whizzer would look in the sunlight. All he wants is to see him by sunrise. Suck him off again, a little more skillfully. The schnapps has him sentimental. He imagines being allowed to look on him in the morning, he imagines being able to kiss him goodbye. Hold his hand.

The way Whizzer moves his hips is sending him. More careful now not to choke him, and the inclusion of a hand helps with that, but it’s not the care, it’s the fluidity, the grace, the circling motion of him and the way it feels to be with him. When he comes, it hits the roof of Marvin’s mouth. 

The taste is… he doesn’t know. He can’t quite form an opinion. Some slides down his chin with the uncontrollable flood of drool he hasn’t learned to handle, some slides down his throat when he pulls off and swallows. And Whizzer’s cock is still hard, glistening, his saliva. He wants to put his mouth on it again, immediately-- instead he watches Whizzer fumble for tissues from the nightstand, quick perfunctory cleanup. 

“What?” Whizzer smiles. 

“Nothing.”

“Flip over, show me the goods, Marvin. You must be aching to finish.” Whizzer touches his chest, Whizzer guides him, he barely has to try. 

Whizzer stays hard, after, and it feels like some kind of a revelation. Marvin never has, not with Trina. Shrivels once he comes, sometimes before he does, tries to fake it and hopes she won’t notice. He suspects the sex is not good for either of them. He suspects if he fakes it some of the time, it’s only fair. He’s never asked.

“I’d like to. Finish.” He nods, red in the face. 

“I promised to blow your mind… ready for some moves from the advanced class?”

He is speechless, all he can do is keep nodding, all he can do is gasp out Whizzer’s name when those perfect lips grace his chest first, and then come up to kiss his mouth. Whizzer’s tongue fills his mouth as if he’s looking for proof he’d been there. And then in a flash he’s down the bed and his tongue is continuing to prove its many talents. 

He knows if he asked, Trina would… would do this, and probably wouldn’t ask him to do the same for her, except he never wanted her to. He never believed he could close his eyes and pretend hard enough for it to be worthwhile. It was enough to get through something mutually disappointing. And if he couldn’t come, there’d be no faking it this way, so he never… 

No one’s ever, for him, before tonight. 

And everything Whizzer had shown him before was merely a _preview_ , to the most intense and fulfilling sexual pleasure Marvin has ever felt in his life. Even in dreams where things were allowed to be good for a little while, his brain could never concoct this delight.

Whizzer swallows him to the root, Whizzer’s nose presses into him, Whizzer’s nose is cute and he’s never thought about how cute a nose could be before, though he’s looked at men and he’s found men cute, and he’s done his best not to think about the hows and the whys. Whizzer’s button nose is flat against Marvin’s groin and Whizzer’s full and perfect lips are wrapped around his cock, and Whizzer’s clever tongue is doing things Marvin can barely categorize, and Whizzer’s name rises and falls in the air on his voice like a prayer. 

Whizzer hums. Marvin comes.

Whizzer sucks him clean, hands him a tissue, smiles down at him from where he sits up in bed now. Walks fingers up his stomach, his chest.

“Guess you’d better get home to your wife.” He says, and Marvin flatters himself it’s wistful. “Maybe after a cold shower?”

Marvin’s dick flags, half-hard. He hadn’t noticed. He reaches up, grabs for Whizzer. Pulls him in to kiss him, until Whizzer pulls away.

“Come on, Marv, we’ve had our fun tonight.” He shoves him back, gentle. “Clean up before you go.”

He fantasizes about tottering home after sunrise stinking of sex, of Pour Homme, except Whizzer’s too light-handed with it for any scent to cling to him after. He fantasizes about slinking in before sunrise and buying himself a bottle of Pour Homme. Dab a little on, take Trina out for an evening, hope the fading scent of it on his own skin could get him through a night of contrived passion with the wife. He fantasizes about never going home, living and dying in bed with Whizzer, a life of hotel soap and room service and lots and lots of sex.

“All right.” He rolls out of bed, he heads for the shower. 

Cold.

It’s not thorough, it’s enough. He puts his clothes back on, he hands the room key off to Whizzer.

“If you want to rifle through the mini bar, or order breakfast… I don’t mind picking up the bill.”

“Won’t your wife--”

“She doesn’t need to know. She doesn’t need to know what I treat you to. Or what I…” The words die away. He doesn’t know what they ought to be.

Whizzer bites his lip. Trades him a folded piece of paper for the room key. Torn from the notepad on the little desk in the corner.

“You can call me.” He says, but his hand is on Marvin’s chest before Marvin can lean in closer. “I took the liberty of calling you a cab, while you were in the shower. This was fun, don’t get me wrong, and I’m not sorry… but I’m not here to get you kicked out.”

“Thanks.”

“I mean if it was just a wife, I might get off on it.” Whizzer admits. “But… you don’t want to lose a kid because you had a couple fuzzy navels too many and caught my eye. I’m not worth that.”

“I’ll call you.” He promises. “Whizzer? I’ll call you.”


	3. With Reservations, Without Reservations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flashing back to their first date-- by Whizzer's reckoning.
> 
> Things don't go to plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, while I stand by this being a fic in which NOTHING BAD HAPPENS, this chapter wound up angstier than intended? But a lot of it is just this early attempt at honesty and emotional intimacy that, while they won't know how to sustain it in a long-term relationship, like... the draw is there, to be able to be open, and to turn to each other. And the way I see it, for Whizzer, there's a hard line between vulnerability he's ready to show a friend (a fair amount) vs vulnerability he's ready to show a lover (none, because lovers don't last), whereas Marvin is just dealing with all the internalized shit he won't know what to do with for a long time.
> 
> So. Early, fumbling attempts, which come with some angst, most of which is just the sharing of old baggage, but also some sweetness, as they both do experience what falling in love is like for the first time.
> 
> EDIT: Added back in a line near the end that got dropped

Marvin does call. He calls and he calls and he calls. If he misses Whizzer, he leaves a message, just to say he’ll call tomorrow, but they quickly fall into a schedule. He goes into the den between work and dinner and he calls, Whizzer answers, they talk. About everything, about nothing. It takes him a week to fall in love.

Not that he could ever say it. Not that he could be the first to say it.

Whizzer Brown. Twenty-eight years old, though after admitting to it he’d tried to shave a little off. About seven years Marvin’s junior, which he doesn’t think is so bad. Seven years doesn’t make him a dirty old man but it gives him a little bit of a thrill now and then. Whizzer has all the experience, but Marvin could take him out-- if he could figure out how, and figure out where, and figure out when-- Marvin could treat him to something again. 

Spend money on him. Make him smile. Make him laugh… Whizzer has the most wonderful laugh. Spoil him a little, isn’t that what an older boyfriend’s for? For getting reservations at restaurants that make you wait weeks for a table?

Whizzer is all contradictions. He’s sweet and he’s nasty, both candid and closed. Whizzer says shocking things in blase tones and says ‘that’s _cute_ , Marvin’ in a voice that’s half-teasing, that drives Marvin crazy…

And when he goes to bed with his wife, sometimes, and she makes it clear in that way of hers she’s waiting for him to make a move, when she thinks because he hasn’t in too long it means there’s something wrong with _her_ , he thinks about Whizzer’s voice in his ear, and the way he says ‘that’s _cute_ , Marvin’. And his laugh. And so he says the things to her, soft things, that he’s afraid to say on the phone, but he comes alive when Whizzer’s on the line.

“So tell me.” Whizzer says, and Marvin pictures him lying in his bed. Whatever his bed looks like. Lying in bed with the phone, twisting the cord around his fingers the same way Marvin does, sitting at his desk in the corner of the den. 

“I’ll tell you.”

“How come you don’t talk to your parents, if they didn’t kick you out, if they don’t know? How do you make the decision to end things first?”

“I was seventeen.” He says. “When I figured it out."

“I was seventeen.” Whizzer echoes, voice heavy. “When they figured it out.”

“I was prepping for college at seventeen. Scholarships and savings and letters to safety schools. I wanted them to be proud. I wanted them to notice. I wanted them to love me, but they never saw me. And I was sick of working myself to the bone, hoping they would love me. I wasn’t the son that they wanted. They only half understood why. So in a year when I left for college, I just never came back. They never came looking. We never said goodbye.”

“I sold film and flashbulbs at seventeen. I slept on couches, in different friends’ houses. When I wasn’t sleeping raw. When I wasn’t getting picked up, and spending the night somewhere. I didn’t hustle, I had a job. Had to drop out of high school to work a job. All right, so some nights you could call me semi-pro. Had to make enough to eat, save up to start renting a crappy apartment, and then a less crappy apartment, and now an acceptable apartment.”

“Would you go back if you could?” Marvin asks. His own parents were lousy and maybe that’s why he’s not much better, but he can’t imagine… he can’t imagine, even lousy as he is, having a beautiful child who’s half you, and kicking him out of your house, and not regretting it right away and for the rest of your miserable life.

“Never. Would you?”

“No. I don’t think they’d notice.”

“Do you think about calling?” Whizzer’s voice goes quiet.

“Always.” He admits. “They’d pick up the phone and they’d say ‘Marvin who?’. Do you?”

“I think about it sometimes. But it passes. I find other ways to pass my time.” And he goes all sing-song. “Like talking to Marvin… who actually wants to hear from me.”

“I wait all day to hear from you.” Marvin promises, Marvin thrills. 

“That’s _cute_ , Marvin.”

“ _You’re_ cute, Whizzer.”

“I sure am.”

“And I miss you.”

“You want your dick sucked.” He accuses, with a warm chuckle that goes straight to it.

“Yes I do. And I want _you_. And I thought maybe we could go out.” He wheedles. He can finally take Whizzer someplace nice. And then… maybe just to have a little time together. Yes, to get his dick sucked. Why shouldn’t he want that? Why shouldn’t they both?

“Out?”

“I’ve got a dinner reservation. I’d rather take you than take my wife. Would you like to go out?”

“With a reservation?” 

And it’s okay, he supposes, if that sweetens the deal. What else is an older boyfriend for? If he hasn’t got experience, he ought to have money, Marvin has money. He has very little else, unless by some chance Whizzer would actually need him to be good at math, ever. Good at anything… anything he didn’t learn, when he left school early. So close to graduating, college out of his grasp because of his selfish, uncaring parents. So much out of his grasp because the world is cruel… so couldn’t Marvin be good to him? Couldn’t they be good to each other? Couldn’t they learn to make up for all the love they were denied and all the love that wouldn’t fit?

“Because I’d really like to take you.” He presses. “If it’s not too…”

“Too?”

“If you’d be free. Saturday night, Whizzer? Say you’re free--”

“Marvin… Is this a nice place?”

“Wouldn’t you like to go to a nice place, Whizzer? Don’t we deserve something nice? Haven’t our lives been lousy enough, that we should get to go somewhere nice?”

“And get our dicks sucked?” A knowing lilt, so like the way he sometimes says ‘ _cute_ ’.

“That, too.” Marvin promises. He’s willing, he’s wanting, that too.

“I’d like to go to dinner with you.”

“Wear a jacket.” Marvin grins. “Wear a tie if you want to. I’ll pick you up-- just tell me where to pick you up-- at eight.”

“Eight. Saturday night. What are you going to tell your wife?”

“A business dinner, something important. That I scheduled for Saturday because I knew on Friday she would want me home… She won’t suspect.” He promises. He can’t promise half as much as he’d like, but he can promise that much, he can promise a little. So help him he wishes he could promise Whizzer anything. And if Whizzer asked him, he’d promise anything. If Whizzer opened the door, he’d step right through it. “And I won’t drink. Maybe just a glass of something with dinner. I’ll come home smelling clean. She doesn’t need to know. That I’d rather be with you.”

“I guess you’ve had some time… to think about this.”

“Taking you out? It’s all I ever seem to think about. I think about you, when we’re not on the phone.” Yes, if Whizzer opened the door, he wouldn’t hesitate. If Whizzer said it first, then Marvin could say it, without thinking about Trina. To whom he says it, and can’t quite mean it, or not the way she takes it when he says it, the way he’d say it to Whizzer. “When I’m lying with her and I feel so alone, I think about you, Whizzer. I think about being with you.”

“Marvin… That night, when I said-- Things I said--” And he halts, he hesitates, and he’d said he’d go to dinner, but now he sounds so uncertain… he sounds so uncertain, and Marvin’s heart lurches. Had he said too much? Are there rules he doesn’t know, for when he can say things?

This is why he can’t say he’s in love. 

And yet, he can’t say nothing. Not with the way these feelings fill him. When he thinks about Whizzer, he’s golden, he’s filled with light, he’s _full_ instead of empty. When Whizzer shares things with him, when Whizzer picks up the phone with that warm drawl, when he teases… Marvin knows things now that he didn’t dream before.

“I think about you.” The words tumble out of him, he can’t hold them back. The idea of Whizzer not feeling the same claws at him, his heart is gone from him, his heart is in the dark. “At work, at home, I think about that hotel. And I want you.”

“And I want you.” Whizzer sighs. Returns his heart to him. There’s trepidation, still, but his heart is back where it belongs, not in a screaming freefall in some void. “I think about you and I want you.”

“I mean, you knew, when we-- Does it bother you, more than you thought that it would? That I have a wife?”

“No.”

“That I have a child?”

“I don’t mind that you have a wife.” He says. “You can’t be all mine, or ask for all of me, that’s fine. Marvin, that’s fine.”

“I want all of you.”

“Well, you can’t always get what you want, Marvin. I learned that from the Rolling Stones, and also life, when I was seventeen.”

“Whizzer--” He starts to protest-- just as well he doesn’t get much chance to, he doesn’t know what to say. He has a wife, he’d be a massive hypocrite. But he can’t help what he wants. 

“Understand what I mean?” Whizzer says, Whizzer pushes back. He’s charming and he’s sweet, but he pushes back. Marvin never knows how to feel about that.

“I want you. All of you.” He croons, low, suffused with romantic sentiment, filled with the thrill of it. He’s in love for the first time in his life, fully in it, how can he help being overcome? Let Whizzer push, it’s fine. Isn’t love enough to overcome a few obstacles? And love like theirs was always going to have obstacles. But he loves him, so isn’t that enough?

True he doesn’t say it, neither of them says it. But it’s there. He can hope… he can hold to the hope that someday Whizzer might. And if Whizzer said it, so could he.

“Well you can have some of me.” Whizzer croons back. “And I can have some of you. And you can pick me up at eight, Saturday. For our date.”

And Whizzer gives him an address, he writes it down. Keeps it hidden in his desk where Trina never looks, because he likes his things particular and she leaves his desk alone.

And on Saturday, he dresses up nice. He goes to pick up Whizzer. He hasn’t seen him in so long, they’ve talked on the phone, every night, but he hasn’t seen him in so long… 

He thinks his memories must lionize. He remembers him too beautiful. He thinks his memories, sweetened by schnapps, must render him more wonderful. He thinks the Whizzer he sees, he’ll know his voice, he’ll reconcile his looks with what he remembers. But Whizzer opens the door, and Marvin is stone cold sober, but he could swear he’s more beautiful than before, and Whizzer is…

His suit, cut just right, gives him quite the silhouette. Broad shoulders, tapered waist, long legs. A fashionable lack of flare, Marvin doesn’t keep up with fashion, only knows he’s glad that ‘flare’ is on the way out. There’s a shine on his shoes, his shirt is peacock satin, collar spread past his lapels, just enough skin on display. Just enough to make him want more.

“Marvin.” He smiles. “It’s nice to see you.”

“You… you look…” He reaches for him, he can’t help himself. Whizzer, framed in his doorway, haloed in light. Marvin traces a fingertip down the center of his exposed chest, until he hits the shirt. He considers popping one more button, he considers playing with that chest hair. 

“I look?” He preens, one hand resting at his belt.

“Better than I remember.”

Whizzer chuckles, his hand moving to Marvin’s elbow. Holding him close. His hands are big, mostly elegant. Bitten nails. There’s something comforting in his bitten nails. The idea that despite his perfections, Whizzer is sometimes unsure, sometimes maybe as much a wreck as Marvin feels. Probably not so much so, no, but… it’s comforting to think that he might understand, in some small way.

“You, too.” He grins. “You’re dressed better. You look good in green.” 

Whizzer’s gaze flickers to Marvin’s tie, and back to his face, Marvin is flying. If they were anywhere less exposed, he might kiss him. 

He wants to kiss him. Or… he wants to be kissed. Held, and kissed. He’s not supposed to want, not the way he does-- he’s an older man-- older enough!-- with money, he shouldn’t be lost to the thought of being held in Whizzer’s strong arms, he shouldn’t long to swoon. A million things Marvin isn’t allowed to want. Whizzer is most of them. Whizzer, his strong arms, his muscular thighs. Whizzer, his hand at his belt, framing his groin, drawing attention. Can it possibly be as Marvin thinks he remembers? It couldn’t be better.

“And sober.” Whizzer adds.

“Gee, thanks.”

“You’re not bad-looking, all put together. Not that you weren’t cute knocking back those fuzzy navels.”

“It was the fifth one that did me in.” Marvin lets his hand slide _down_ , lets one finger circle Whizzer’s navel, through the slick satin of his shirt. Safer than a kiss, he could pull his hand back easily if another door opened along the corridor. But Whizzer lights up at being touched, sultry and grinning and pleased. 

“Is that so?” He purrs. Playfully bats Marvin’s hand away, only to grab on a moment. Only a moment, and yet… oh, that moment.

“Straight to my head. Shall we?” He longs to offer his arm. Whizzer turns out the light, locks the door, they don’t touch on the way down to Marvin’s car, but he opens the door for him when they reach it, and Whizzer sucks in a small breath, and smiles up at him.

“So this is a _date_ , huh?” He says, as Marvin pulls away from the curb.

“What else would it be?”

“I don’t know. I’ll be honest, Marv, a lot of guys… they don’t do this. Not unless they _really_ want something. And I don’t normally take a chance on closet cases. A guy can get in a lot of trouble if he does. Guys like you, with wives, families? They don’t… do this.”

“Oh. Well…”

“Don’t get me wrong, I-- Well I mean, we’re here, aren’t we? I didn’t think you were… _dangerous_.”

“ _Dangerous_?”

“Yeah. Dangerous. Like, one of _those_ closet cases, like… guys who get off and then freak out? Shit, right, you don’t… you don’t do this, with guys. You took a chance on me, too. Nothing I’m saying makes any sense to you.”

It doesn’t, it does. Marvin knows what it’s like to grapple with what he wants and what it means about him and what it’s like to be sick with himself, scared of himself. Marvin knows he… he isn’t a good man. If he was, he wouldn’t be in this situation. He knows he’s childish and he’s needy, he knows he’s greedy. He knows he likes his problems to be everyone’s problems, so that someone will fix them, so that someone will take care of him, and he knows it’s a _lousy_ way to go through life, but he doesn’t know how else to be, and his shrink’s not exactly much help.

In fairness to Mendel, there’s a lot Marvin hasn’t opened up about yet. Like the whole thing where he wants to fuck men. Or, be fucked by this one man in particular. Or… well, he’s been planning to tell him about that. In case it’s relevant. Mostly he blames his parents, who can barely be said to have raised him, and there are things about him he fears just mean he’s crazy, but it might be relevant. That he’d like this man to fuck him. And that in general he likes men and he looks at men and he dreams about men and he’s only ever wanted men.

“Well… you’re with me now. So… you don’t have to take chances, with other men.”

“ _Cute_ , Marvin.” He snorts. 

“No, I mean it. I could take care of you, you know.”

“Set me up somewhere where you could come and fuck me whenever you wanted? Is that the kind of money you’ve got?” Whizzer teases. “You want to stick me in some love nest? Ask me to give up working and wait around to be sweet for you, at your beck and call? I’m not wife material, I told you.”

“I’m not asking you to give up anything. You already have a place, if you like your place I won’t ask you to change.” Marvin shrugs, and tries to keep his eyes on traffic. “And I already have a wife. I’m just saying… whatever you need. I can give you what you need.”

“I need… sex. Good sex. And I guess I don’t mind dinner reservations. And I guess I wouldn’t mind flowers, once in a while. A little bit of attention, from a man with money. Should’ve hid that watch before you went cruising the Paradise Garage, Marvin. Maybe you thought if you dressed real shabby you wouldn’t get picked up by a boy after your wallet.”

“I don’t mind if you are.”

“ _Mar_ vin…” Whizzer groans.

“What? Is that not very cute of me?”

“It’s a little sad.” Whizzer’s hand rests on his thigh. “I shouldn’t tease.”

“You can tease.”

“I shouldn’t imply--”

“You can imply.” Marvin says, cuts him off to say it. It’s what he put out there, paying for a hotel, a nice hotel, that first night. And offering more besides. It’s what he’s put out there making reservations it took weeks to get, flaunting it. What else has he got to flaunt? Whizzer’s got that body and Whizzer’s got his looks, Whizzer’s got the youth that Marvin can physically feel slipping away on cold mornings when his back informs him he slept wrong just doing what he always does. Whizzer’s got moves and sex appeal and confidence, and Marvin has money and he’s good at math and he’s good at faking shit. And it’s not like it’s enough just to think that he could love him. He’s learned his love’s not enough.

“Marvin.” Whizzer sighs.

“When I left home, I had my own savings. Gifts from relatives, four or five years of summer jobs-- all right, so a couple of those years weren’t _much_ , but it added up. Enough to strike out on my own once I was in college, with the scholarship, with a little part-time work, with the idea of future summers spent employed, and then… I was lucky and I played it smart. Once I was working, I made my money fast. Lucky me, a lifetime of experience in knowing what people want and how to give it to them, even if you’re selling something that can’t really exist. Turns out a closet case can really make a killing starting out in marketing, I’ve been marketing myself my whole life.” He laughs, only a little bitter. “Rose up. Made enough to make up for the bridges I burned, enough to feel pretty damn comfortable without family connections to fall back on, family money. That’s what Trina saw in me. I mean it certainly wasn’t passion. I could afford to take care of her. Passion didn’t matter.”

“You were all passion with me.” He squeezes Marvin’s thigh, more warmth than heat. “I like you, Marvin, I do. I even like just talking. I’m glad you needed a friend, you weren’t the only one. Not to say I don’t care about money, I care. Can’t get by in this world without it, and baby’s got expensive tastes. But… I don’t know. You don’t need to take care of me. Not all the time, that’s not what I’m looking for. Just… treat me a little, when you want to go out. That’s not much to ask for, is it? A little good time when you want one, a little… Buy me presents. Buy me dinners. That suits me fine. But don’t set me up like you want to keep me. I can’t be kept.”

“Noted.” 

“Did you think you could keep me?”

“No.” He swallows.

“Aww.” Another touch, another squeeze. “Kept is overrated. You can’t deny it, freedom’s better.”

“I don’t suppose I can argue with you.”

“You like _your_ freedom.”

He takes one hand off the wheel to grab for Whizzer’s, to bring it to his lips. “That I do, such as it is. It lets me do this.”

“Then we’re on the same page.” Whizzer grins, sly and sweet, he catches just a glimpse of it as traffic rolls to a stop.

Freedom, not being tied down… freedom to play around, he supposes that they are. Without a loose definition of commitment, they wouldn’t be free to be together, not that they are, not free, just together. And he doesn’t know what he’d do if they weren’t. Together.

Die a little every day. Resent and repress. Sit at his desk in the corner of the den with the door closed not because he had work to do or phone calls to make but because he needed to decompress and couldn’t stand the company, couldn’t stand his family, when all he wanted was a family. Suffer and wither and never know what real pleasure was. Looking but not touching. Maybe one day it would boil over, without Whizzer to come and let off the steam. Maybe one day he’d come screeching into the dining room at dinner and announce to Trina and to Jason that he couldn’t take it anymore, the lies. Ruin everything for nothing, ruin Jason’s life for nothing, throw his life away for nothing. So maybe he’d give himself an aneurysm, or…

Maybe he’d just never know. Maybe he’d just never learn what really falling for someone could be like. Maybe he’d go his whole life just not understanding all the feelings other people understood. Looking at someone and getting lightheaded, thinking of someone and feeling your palms sweat. Talking to someone with knots in your stomach, and butterflies. He’s never allowed himself butterflies. But Whizzer gives him butterflies...

He used to think it was for the best, a marriage based on stability. The security he brought, the respectability Trina did. If it wasn’t for physical demands of heterosexual marriage, at least, he thinks there’s a lot to be said for stability, security, respectability. What else is there? Butterflies? He wouldn’t have needed them. He likes to be married, or at least he does in theory, he’s always wanted to be married. And there’s not another woman he thinks would be better than Trina, to her credit and to her detriment. No woman he’d like more, though it isn’t fair, and he’s too selfish to care enough that it isn’t, because they’re convenient and she’s a good wife. And he never expected butterflies, and never wanted her to try.

If he’s honest with himself, he hadn’t viewed marriage with dread alone, when Trina gave him the news. He’d left a lot in her hands, kept his offer vague, she could interpret ‘I want to do the right thing’ how she liked. If she hadn’t wanted a kid, with him, after one night of amateur fumblings, he wouldn’t have held it against her. But part of him had been _happy_ that she did. Maybe it was her biological clock telling her to take the chance as it came, and maybe it was his money being enough to start a family on, and maybe they just both wanted to believe they could be a happy family, he’d wanted a happy family his whole life. The problem with wanting a happy family because you come from an unhappy one is, you don’t know what makes a happy family tick. You’re stuck repeating mistakes and knowing enough to know that’s what they are. But no one tells you how not to make them.

If only he could marry Whizzer. Not that he’s known him long enough to fantasize, but hell, he hadn’t been with Trina very long when they… And he can _want_ Whizzer, he could do his duty by him, if it wasn’t an impossibility, a crazy impossibility. He’s aware it’s crazy. Crazy because this is only the second time they’ve done anything other than talk on the phone, crazy because Whizzer’s a man and the idea of a real future with him is…

_Wonderful_. The idea of a future with Whizzer is wonderful. The idea of a house with furniture and art and Whizzer is, the idea of nights out with Whizzer is, the idea of dinners at home with Whizzer is _wonderful_. 

“What if we ran away together?” He says, though there’s nothing serious in it at all. 

“Make it someplace warm and sunny.” Whizzer laughs.

“You on the beach?”

“You got it, honey. Rub some lotion on my back. I’ll stay pretty and you’ll spend money, and we’ll have lots of sex.”

“Pretend that we’re married.”

“I’m not a wife and you’re not a good husband, let’s not pretend we hate each other. Do you know _any_ married people who don’t hate each other?”

“I don’t hate my wife.” Marvin’s smile falls away. “Not most of the time. Only when she wants to have sex.”

“Only then.”

“Only when she wants things I can’t give her. But it’s all right if I hate myself, too. Which I do. When we have sex.”

“Did you hate yourself for having sex with me?”

“I’ve never hated myself less.”

“Oh… Marvin, that’s…”

“It does not speak well to who I am as a person, I’m aware.”

“No, it’s… romantic.” He sighs. “And I’m glad. Because I’d really like to do it again, and I’m not into the self-loathing trip and I don’t want to be a part of it, or the reason someone else hates himself. But for some reason, don’t ask me why, I’m absolutely crazy for it, I wanna do it again. With you. I mean is that nuts, or what? One drunk night a month ago and here I am, wanting you.”

“Obviously I’m grateful. Dinner would be a lot less fun if you didn’t come.”

“If I didn’t come.” He snorts. “You’d take your wife to dinner?”

“I waited long enough for this reservation, I’d have to take someone.”

“How long?”

“Three weeks.”

“Made an impression, did I?” Whizzer’s hand returns to his thigh, but his voice isn’t light and teasing as it means to be. “Maybe I shouldn’t flatter myself--”

“Flatter yourself.”

“Being your first?”

“Hell of a first.” Marvin smiles. Catches his eye at another stop, traffic thick. It eases up, once he can make a turn, it’s not bad. Pretty good, even. The drive feels pleasant and unstressful with Whizzer at his side, with plenty of time to get to dinner, with a wife who won’t wait up because it’s a dinner that’s meant to go late.

Which she doesn’t know is a date.

She was happy enough he’d scheduled it late, to be able to help Jason with homework before he left. She’d thought him thoughtful, hadn’t minded when he said it might go late with drinks, and he’d take the time to sober up and drive safe, if it did. Not to worry about him. He’d said I just need to go to dinner with Mr. Brown, who I’ve kept waiting all month. And so she isn’t worried.

Does it make him a heel?

He’s a heel. So he’s a heel. But he’d rather be with Whizzer, and the world is bright with Whizzer.

And the restaurant’s a _disaster_.

Whizzer...

Takes him by the arm.

Makes eyes at him. Begs to get their table changed, which he can’t do anyway.

So Whizzer pouts. 

Like he’s going to walk out, on a reservation Marvin waited three weeks for to please him. 

Whizzer pitches a fit.

Whizzer’s indiscreet, Whizzer’s hard to please. It hadn’t seemed that way the first time. Whizzer’s got demands, Whizzer spoils the plans he’s made, and yet… Whizzer’s still…

Whizzer is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, radiant in anger, in his fit of pique. Alluring when he plays the spoiled doll, the pet, when he cozies up to Marvin and bats his eyes and says ‘can’t you fix it?’, when he… 

Spoils everything, and--

Somehow Marvin thinks he’s _wonderful_.

The maitre-d’ does not think he’s _wonderful_. They are formally invited to cancel their reservation, if the table doesn’t suit them. 

“Well there goes champagne and starters.” Marvin sighs, but he doesn’t stop Whizzer. He doesn’t stop Whizzer hanging off his arm, playing with his hair, as they go to immediately request his car back from the valet. “There goes filet mignon. There goes dessert.”

“So let’s screw.”

“You know how to lift the mood.”

“It’s what I really wanted to do. Who cares about filet mignon? Who cares about dessert? I know what I want for dessert.” He tugs Marvin forward. Lets go when they reach the valet. In an instant his posture changes, from fawning boytoy to menacing bruiser. Warning glare given, before the speed of their exit or their physical closeness can be commented on.

“Then I’d better take you somewhere nice.” Marvin swallows. “For dessert.”

He’d liked Whizzer fawning, he’d liked having eyes made at him, the ‘fix it for me’ pout-- though he’d like it better if he could actually fix shit-- he’d liked the teasing fingers through his hair, wheedling and pleading, liked feeling like a big man in his (younger) boyfriend’s eyes… (does it matter that he’s younger?)

Whizzer intimidating the guy at the valet station with a look, though? That has him _hot_. Whizzer, his chest puffed, the tilt of his head, the surety in his eye and the sneer, the _readiness_ … as if he could have-- what, fought a valet?

That shouldn’t impress him. Let alone turn him on. Fights don’t excite him. 

Well. They shouldn’t.

He’s always found violence frightening. But maybe not only frightening.

Okay, not only frightening.

There’d been that draw, to rougher boys, in younger days. Sporty and competitive, big and broad, with unpredictable tempers, like his youthful temper… Boys with no patience for him, usually. Boys who’d give him a shove and tell him to knock it off when he got to be tiresome, and he always got to be tiresome. Boys who’d posture and threaten knowing it would never come to blows. But it was exciting to think it might. When he would never be held, it was exciting to be grabbed, when he would never be kissed, it was exciting to be shoved. When he would never be touched by a boy who loved him, he took the touches he could get. He provoked them. He had talent.

It wasn’t that he was the type to get off on being hit, exactly. It was just the only way to get touched was a little tussle that might stop short of an outright fight. It was just that he was good at provoking and he liked the fire. He likes the fire in a man’s eyes and he’d liked…

Things he’s not supposed to want. Surely things he’s not supposed to want, things he’s not…

Whizzer picked him up looking for something, and that ain’t it, kid. 

This ain’t what older boyfriends with money do, what they like, what they want from pretty boys, sweet boys, who don’t need… who don’t need a reminder of a world where they have to posture, where they have to fight.

Gentility, security, safety, luxury. Those are the things a man like him could be providing, ought to be, to a boy, pretty and sweet, as Whizzer is. 

When the car pulls up, Marvin opens the passenger side door, he offer Whizzer his hand. He takes his keys from the valet and tries not to break out in a cold sweat as he gets into the car.

“Where do you want to go for dessert?” He asks him.

“You know what I want isn’t dessert.”

Marvin takes him back to the hotel. Even arranges the same room they’d had. Marvin takes his hand once they’re out of sight, once there’s no one to see them hold on. He holds onto Whizzer, in the elevator. They get to the door, to the room, to the bed, and he holds Whizzer, in his arms…

And suddenly everything’s fine.

“I’m sorry about dinner.” Whizzer nuzzles at his cheek, conciliatory. Tugs and smooths at his lapels. “Marvin… I’m sorry about dinner. And I’ll make it up to you…”

“Mm-hm…”

“Hey, full points for getting the table, though, really. If you were trying to impress me… it was a really nice place. I’m still impressed.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah… I can’t believe… you were waiting weeks for that table, you didn’t even mention it.”

“Not until I had it.” He shrugs. “So we could just-- Should I have told you sooner?”

“I don’t know.” He starts loosening Marvin’s tie. “I don’t know. Maybe it doesn’t matter, I don’t know.”

“I’m sorry about tonight.”

“Don’t be.” Whizzer places a finger against his lips, strips his tie away. “You’ll make it up to me, too?”

He dodges Marvin’s first three attempts at a kiss, as they remove each other’s clothes, but once they’re half-naked, Whizzer rests his hands at Marvin’s sides and they kiss, they kiss, it’s wonderful… He’s never felt so many emotions, all the things Whizzer makes him feel. The things that thrill him, the things that scare him. He’s never been kissed so passionately, with teeth, with heat, with hunger. 

There’s a push, there’s a pull. Teeth, and tongue, and some control-- he’s in it, then he’s out of it, moment to moment, with Whizzer… And he could like losing control, with Whizzer…

He doesn’t like the idea of liking to lose control, but when Whizzer dominates, his knees go weak. 

“Play nice.” He orders, gives Whizzer’s hair a tug. 

“I thought I was.” Whizzer grins.

Marvin kisses him again, hand still firm in his hair, takes charge from the start, undeniable. 

“Oh.” Whizzer licks his lips, as they part. He looks suitably dazzled, the idea of being capable of dazzling has Marvin on a high. To be capable of dazzling Whizzer... “You like it like that.”

“Yeah.” Marvin lies. It’s how he should like it, and… he wants to keep dazzling. He wants Whizzer to keep looking at him like this, a little surprised by him, a little impressed, a little… something he doesn’t know. “So… are you going to play nice for me?”

“No.” Whizzer grins and shakes his head. “Mm, you’re gonna _make_ me. Come and get me.”

He drags Marvin to the bed, they fall into it on a mutual high, they wrestle each other out of trousers.

“Oh, god…”

“What?” Whizzer laughs, flips them over and laughs again when Marvin can’t flip them back, when Marvin needs a moment.

“I thought I must have remembered you wrong.” He groans out the admission. “Your legs are perfect. And your cock is huge.”

“And what do you want me to do with it?” He purrs, and so Marvin flips them over, pins him in place and starts kissing his way down, reveling in the way Whizzer’s laughter turns to moans. 

He’d managed this drunk, he can manage it sober. He remembers… it’s what he thinks about, every time he gets off. Alone, with Trina, in dreams, awake, it’s always what it was to make love to Whizzer.

Maybe ‘make love’ is too tender a term. After all, they’d been strangers, then, but they aren’t strangers anymore, and he’s rapidly getting better at using his tongue, listening to the sounds Whizzer makes, soft and low, little uttered bits of praise and direction as he works to improve, and the hands in his hair… He moans around him, at the feel of hands in his hair, Whizzer’s hips jerk under his hands. Remembers the way it had felt, the vibration of Whizzer’s lips when he’d hummed, before, tries doing it on purpose this time-- isn’t sure how good he’s doing, until Whizzer hisses out a couple of choice words.

He experiments, when his jaw needs a break, with just humming against him, lips against the head of his cock, one hand working over him with a little twist on the upstroke. Alternates between that, and licking him like a lollipop, and both seem to get him the reaction he craves from Whizzer, Whizzer who moans and who pets at him, tugs at his hair and strokes his cheek and tells him ‘that’s it’ in such breathy tones. Whizzer, who comes half in his mouth when their eyes meet, it sits on Marvin’s tongue and drips down his chin. 

Marvin swallows. Whizzer kisses him.

“You are… full of surprises, Marvin.” He says, and urges Marvin to lie back, doesn’t have to urge too hard. “You really are a quick study. Been going out late to practice with other boys?”

“No. No, I couldn’t-- I don’t think I could keep up with… I mean, one affair’s enough, isn’t it?”

“Affair…” He licks his lips. “Is that what this is? Is that what I am?”

“I mean… I’m married.”

“No, I know. I just meant--”

“But I’m not in love with her. I’m not attracted to her. Not like I am w-- to you.”

“All right.” Whizzer nods. “Marvin’s single exception, to married life… I can deal with that.”

“I mean, you know…” He shrugs, helpless. “You probably… Etiquette demands you-- you probably… wait for the third date, to ask me to leave my wife. But-- you can deal with that?”

“I’m not going to ask you to do that.” A soft chuckle, lips against his neck, against his chest. Teeth scraping at him, a bite looking for purchase at one pectoral. “I’m not here to tear your life apart, I’m here for a good time.”

And Whizzer’s good for a good time. Whizzer is… amazing. Better, again, than he remembers. Whizzer collapses against his chest after blowing his mind for the second time, fingertips tracing patterns on his skin, Whizzer is somehow warm and cool at once against his heated skin, Whizzer is everything at once. 

“Mm, well _I_ worked up an appetite.” He bites his lip, tilts that fawning pet look up towards Marvin. “Order me room service?”

“Pass me the phone. You dial, you’re closer. And you have me pinned.” Marvin smiles. 

Whizzer is rolling away before he can lean up for a kiss, is grinning back over his shoulder as he grabs the phone, tosses Marvin the room service menu and hands him the receiver, dials down for him.

“Surprise me.” He says.

“Anything you don’t eat?”

“Just make it kosher and I’m easy. And let’s have a drink. And something sweet.”

Marvin orders two dishes he likes and figures Whizzer can take his pick between them. He orders him a strawberry daiquiri-- he orders himself a tequila sunrise. He orders creme brulee. While Whizzer sits naked on the edge of the bed, Marvin gets up to make himself presentable enough to answer the door for room service. Finds himself snagged and pulled in close, to stand between Whizzer’s knees. To be smiled up at, warm.

“It’s better this way, isn’t it? I mean, again, I’m impressed by the reservation and I appreciate it, but they wouldn’t have liked it if I decided to eat dinner sprawled and naked. Like a roman emperor.”

“Just cover up when the knock comes.” Marvin runs a hand through his hair. “Like a roman emperor… Decadent and spoiled, is that it?”

“That’s it.”

“Mm. Well… guess I’d better keep you sweet. If that’s the kind of sight I can expect to be treated to. You, _sprawled_ and naked.” His hand slips down to cup Whizzer’s face, to trace a thumb over his lower lip. To drink in the sparkle in his eyes.

“You better.” Whizzer says, but he kisses Marvin’s thumb, and there’s a dreamy sort of softness to him. “Promise me it’s always going to feel like this.”

“I hope so. I’m not used to feeling this.”

“Me either. But I could get to like it.”

"You've got to let go of me sometime, you know. Nice as this is, much as I like it."

“What’s your rush?” Whizzer’s hands come up, grab for his waist, keep him in place. “You’ve got plenty of time to get dressed before dinner’s ready.”

“I should wash my face. At least.” He protests, but it’s not much protest, as Whizzer’s head comes to rest against him, as Whizzer’s sigh gusts warm across his skin. 

“I don’t get the afterglow too often. Indulge me.”

Well… they have time.


	4. The First Day of the Rest of Your Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rest of the night of the second first date... Marvin takes Whizzer back to his place.

“You really did it… you’ve got a place of your own.” Whizzer whistles, as Marvin fumbles for his key.

“Well, Trina’s got herself a new husband, I was underfoot. I was…” He trails off, retaken by a two year old shame. The process of making amends has been ongoing. Strained. He’s trying. And he doesn’t mind spending a long time trying, all things given… but now he doesn’t know. Now, if he and Whizzer are back on track, does it complicate things?

Maybe not. Jason loves Whizzer, Whizzer loves Jason. Maybe it doesn’t have to make anything harder, maybe it makes things better. Maybe his problem was never that he wanted it all, but that he thought he should control it. That he thought it should be a certain way and that he belonged at the center of it all. Coparenting with Trina and Mendel is… working, better than it once was. Jason’s at the center, which is how it should have been from the start. And they’re even getting along, in… very brief doses, him and Trina and Mendel. Occasionally. Brittle, but healing. And Jason’s not always happy, but he wasn’t always happy before, either. He likes to think if he could let go of some things, and repair some relationships… his family could just be shaped a little differently, from the one he used to picture.

“It’s okay.” Whizzer tells him, but he doesn’t know. 

“It’s not okay.”

“It’s good you’ve got a place.” He rubs Marvin’s back. 

They’d tried having a place, once. Tried an apartment that was their apartment. Marvin had moved them back ‘home’-- selfish, he supposes. At the time he’d thought it would be best. He’d been selfish, yes, but he’d also _tried_ to think about Jason, and what would disrupt the least, and he’d regretted walking out on the son if not the wife. A place that was just theirs… it hadn’t lasted long. If he’d let it last, it would have been better, if he’d trusted Whizzer then, they could have… Could they have? So maybe this time...

“I’m ashamed of how I ended things. With them, with you. Of the man I was… Afraid I haven’t come far enough. Afraid of the mistakes I’ll still make.” He admits.

“We were both--”

“You were _nothing_ like what I was, you didn’t pull the shit I pulled.”

“I pulled shit.” Whizzer shrugs, and leans into him. “I hurt you. And I did it on purpose, sometimes. So don’t tell me we weren’t both the problem, once. It takes two.”

He turns, he lets himself be held, there in the corridor. Where anyone could see them… let anybody see them. Let everybody see them and let everybody know...

“I don’t want to _ever_ … I don’t want to ever _hurt_ you the way I-- I don’t want to ever be that man again.” He buries his face in Whizzer’s neck. _Pour Homme_ , that hasn’t changed. Just that little hint. Familiar. Funny how it’s comforting now. 

Comforting… and hot. He’s missed the way it melds to him, it’s not the same sprayed on a pillow.

“You’re not that man.” 

“You don’t know--”

“I know you.” Whizzer cuts him off, but his voice is gentle. “Marvin, I know you. And you know me, too. We know what we were like, and what we don’t want, and we know the way we get, and we know-- we know--”

“We know?”

“Did you know, Marvin… the first time I fell for you…” He rocks them both just once, from side to side. Marvin melts, just a little. “You were an asshole sometimes, and sometimes you were sweet… and sometimes you were an asshole but I felt so damn bad for you… and I liked you mean. So I made you meaner. And you liked me mean, so it wasn’t a problem, ‘til it got out of hand. But if you were mean and we didn’t get sappy, then I could pretend that I knew what I was doing. When it came to love, I didn’t know what I was doing. I was afraid to feel…”

“I was afraid to feel. The first time I fell for you… you were definitely an asshole. I loved it. And you were sweet. You were sweet, indiscreet. You were so demanding. I loved it. The first time I fell for you, I was so caught up in what I thought I had to be. I wanted to let you walk all over me. Sometimes maybe literally. But I had to control things, I couldn’t let myself want… everything I want. God, Whizzer, everything I want…”

“Literally, huh?” Whizzer teases.

“I mean I’m not a masochist.” He says, face suddenly hot. Makes the mistake of pulling away from the crook of Whizzer’s neck, and seeing his measuring smile. And, in stark contrast, his slightly too-wet eyes.

“Not even a little bit? Come on, Marvin, never know unless you try… and a little spanking once in a while is _fun_.”

“I’m not a masochist.” He pulls away, fumbling to get the door unlocked. “Can we talk about this inside?”

“We certainly can.” Whizzer purrs, presses so close behind him it must take him three times as long to get the door open. 

“I’m not into handcuffs and I’m not into whips and paddles.” He huffs, holding the door for Whizzer. Feeling weak in the knees when he passes close by, like he used to get, when they were brand new the first time. “Are we really going to talk about this right now? I had things I wanted to say to you--”

“Hey.” Whizzer catches him, hands on his waist, turns him to be kissed. “Okay. Start from the top and tell me. I’ll take you seriously, tell me.”

Marvin takes a deep breath. “People say, ‘today is the first day of the rest of your life’.”

“Do they?” He teases, his mouth twists into that familiar smirk, but there’s a weight behind his eyes, serious.

“And I always found that trite.” Marvin barrels on. He can handle a little ribbing, if that’s what it takes, for Whizzer to be able to stand here and listen to something serious. They’ve just had a first stab at talking about weighty and emotional things, they both need… something. A little levity to keep from cracking, and Whizzer’s good at that, Marvin just has to let him be. 

Once upon a time, he thinks he’d have gotten pissy-- thought it meant Whizzer wasn’t taking him seriously at all. But he thinks he gets it now. It’s a safety release valve and it can be for both of them. They’ve already come close enough to becoming weepy messes in the corridor.

“You got that right.” Whizzer says, right on cue.

“But that day that I saw you, when you said I could call you, Whizzer…”

“Oh, no…” He reaches out, and the attempt at composure they’ve silently agreed upon crumbles, they’re back in each other’s arms, now in the middle of Marvin’s empty apartment. Marvin’s sad and empty apartment.

“I don’t know what I’m doing. I only know it’s you. I don’t know how to make this right.” He confesses, when Whizzer moves him, he acquiesces.

They kiss. 

“Is it enough to have me here tonight?” He whispers, and he doesn’t pull away. He always used to pull away, kisses were foreplay, one or two for the afterglow, but now his lips rest against Marvin’s and he’d been the one to lean in.

“It would be enough to see your face. And know you’re doing well.” Marvin sighs, his breath threatens to hitch and he fights it, touches Whizzer’s chest, touches his cheek. “And know you’re looking handsome. And know that--”

“Marv…”

“Aw, hell. And think you could remember, that things weren’t always bad. That we weren’t always angry, and we weren’t always…”

“I don’t know what I’m doing. I only know I’m here. I don’t know how to be in a thing like this, I don’t know what I’d do with a feeling like--” And he stops himself, and he grips Marvin’s arms, firm.

“A feeling like?”

“The feelings that you give me. Just like you always have. Marvin, I couldn’t forget. And Marvin, I’d--”

“Whizzer… All I want is you, Whizzer.” And their mouths are still so close together, and maybe Whizzer is right, maybe this time around they know better, how to give each other what they need.

“Take me to bed. Let me… love you.” He pauses, his voice trembles, Marvin wants it, Whizzer wants him…

Whizzer wants him.

Whizzer hasn’t seen him, for two years.

Two years he hasn’t exactly spent taking expert care of himself. Or care of himself at all. 

He makes sure to kiss him, before he pulls away, to make it clear he’s not pulling away from ‘love’, that’s what he’s wanted. 

“Whizzer, I-- I ought to tell you, or, prepare you… It’s been two years, and maybe time and distance has made your memory kind.”

“If you mean, do I remember the good times, I do.” His smile is warm, the bedroom eyes are out in full force. “We got to be pretty good.”

“I’m not as young as I used to be, I mean.”

“I’ll live if we only fuck once a night.”

“I mean, I-- I mean I’m… Older.” Marvin winces. If Whizzer was pushing thirty when they met, it’s just about fair to say Marvin’s pushing forty now. Not pushing hard, but… looking at it. A couple years of being on the wrong side of thirty-five, anyway.

“Don’t tell anyone, but after two years, so am I. Just a little bit.”

“And my metabolism is… older.”

What he doesn’t expect is for Whizzer to light _up_.

“Oh, Marv… honey, take your shirt off and let me at those love handles.”

“There might be more to them than you remember.”

“Bring me those love handles. It gives me pleasure to see the love handles--” Whizzer reaches for him, all playfully grabby-hands.

“Stop it.” Marvin steps back out of reach. He tries not to laugh.

He laughs.

“And this. My squishy Marv tummy, I missed it--” Whizzer pursues. The playful threat of grabbing, the mirth in his eyes. Marvin just might let himself be caught.

With appropriate protest, of course. They both enjoy a little chase, a little clash. It’s just a question of keeping things light, and fun. Like this.

“I’m a grown man, grown men do not have ‘tummies’.” He says, mock stern, one final step back. Close enough to the wall to give in and let Whizzer trap him.

“But it’s so _cute_ , Marvin, what else can I say about it? And the love handles. I wanna grab ‘em. I wanna squeeze ‘em.”

“Stop.” He laughs, and Whizzer catches up.

"You’re so sexy. I mean it, I’m not teasing, I mean I’ve missed your-- whatever you want to call it. You, squishy.” He pokes at Marvin’s stomach, gentle, smiles when muscles contract, ticklish. “And the love handles.”

“You’ll think I let myself go. Got fat without you.”

“You’re not _fat_. Just soft. Teddy bear.” He pouts appealingly, once again makes grabby hands towards Marvin’s sides.

“God, you do know how to charm.” Marvin throws his head back, gives in. Lets Whizzer grab him and _squeeze_ him and tug him close.

“And I want my arms around you. And I want you in my bed. Missed having Marvin for a pillow…” He croons, and so Marvin throws his arms around Whizzer’s shoulders, and he lets himself be swayed, and swayed, and kissed.

“Mm, I’m a slob without a hot young thing to keep up with.”

“So keep up with me.” Whizzer nips at him, lets go of his love handles just so that he can bury a hand in his hair. Just so that he can give his ass a squeeze. “I’d love to have you keep up with me. Oh, but don’t work off too much, if you do. Not now that this ass is finally mine, Marvin, not now that I’ve finally got my favorite pillow back. Remember sprawling out in that big hotel bed? You took time off in the middle of the day, so we could meet… so we could have _time_. Cocktails with lunch, and sex, and watching crappy daytime television with my head on your stomach. And you let me take the cherry out of your drink. You always gave me the cherries out of your drinks. When there was one.”

“Freud would have a field day.” 

“Fuck Freud.”

“He’d have a field day with that.” Marvin laughs, and leans up, and kisses Whizzer, brief and sweet. “I remember. Playing with your hair until you’d start to snore.”

“I beg your pardon--”

“You’d start to snore. But… soft. On good days I loved it, I thought it was sweet, I-- On bad days I’d say it was a strike against you, but you know, when we… When I… I never slept so well alone. I missed your snore. How clingy you get. Even in summertime, I thought I’d be glad to get my bed back come summer, but I missed having you plastered against me, your face stuck to me with sweat and drool, and I just can’t sleep without your snore.”

“I missed yours. I used to think you drove me crazy, and then you weren’t there, and it turns out I’m crazy all on my own.” He slides a thigh between Marvin’s, crowds him right into the bare wall. “Snoring and love handles and everything. Maybe there are things neither of us will miss, but there are so many things I thought I hated that I love. About my fussy, grumbly, squishy, kvetchy pain in the ass Marvin.”

“Uh-huh.” His head falls back and hits the wall and he laughs, draws Whizzer closer. “ _I’m_ fussy? I seem to recall you fussing. And kvetching. And being a _huge_ pain in the ass. I miss it all.”

“Get your shirt off.” Whizzer tugs his tie loose. “Show me the bedroom. Let me love you.”

“Down the hall, end of the hall.” He gives his chest a shove, grinning when he’s pulled right after. “Whizzer-- I love you, too. I do.”

Whizzer freezes, Whizzer glows, Whizzer pulls him into the kind of kiss Marvin’s only seen in movies. The kind of kiss he used to try for, once, but it always came around with a little too much bite or it ended too soon. This time, everything fits and every beat hits. 

“I love you.” He laughs, presses his cheek to Marvin’s. “I love you. Now come to _bed_.”

“And I’ll let you. I mean… not ‘let’. Want. I want you to.” He swallows. “I want you to. Oh, I want you to… I’ve always wanted you to.”

“Oh… oh, honey.”

“I’ve _always_ wanted you to.”

“Okay.” A whisper, another kiss. “Got what we need?”

“Don’t laugh?”

“I’m not laughing.”

“I stole a vibrator from my ex-wife.” Marvin groans miserably. 

“Oh, Marv… has it really come to that?”

“It gets worse.”

“I don’t see how that’s possible.” Whizzer tuts, dragging him down the hall. Still managing not to laugh, despite a twitch of amusement.

“I haven’t even had the guts to use it.”

“Okay, so it got worse. Has she noticed the disappearance of this vibrator?” And there, the barely suppressed mirth, though Marvin can’t call it unwarranted.

“She has a husband, I’ve had nothing. I mean she hasn’t said anything to _me_. I packed it with me when I left. In two years she hasn’t said anything.”

“In two years you haven’t used it? Come on, Marvin, you know the logistics of inserting object into asshole.” Whizzer teases. 

“Yes, but I’ve always been the object and you’ve always been the asshole! And I… It’s not being able to see what I’m doing, it trips me up.”

“I can just picture you, trying to douche in the shower and pitching a fit because the hand mirror you’ve got back there keeps fogging up-- really? Not being able to see what you’re doing?”

“I’m _capable_ , I don’t like it, alone.” He admits, and that last little word feels enormous in his mouth, he’s relieved when Whizzer barrels on without seeming to note it.

“It’s not rocket science, I could use a vibrator blindfolded. I mean I’m not really into that, but logistically--”

“I’m glad you’re loving this.”

“I’m loving this. Oh, Marvin, I’m _living_ for this. Two _years_ you’ve had a stolen vibrator sitting in your nightstand, and I still get to be the first to get inside you.” He crows, only to stop short, to crash into the bedroom door, expression stunned. “Alone… You were _waiting_ for me.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Marvin says, but there’s absolutely no heat to his tone, only to his face. 

“You were! You wanted _me_.”

“I don’t know where you got such a ridiculous notion-- you and I were broken up at this point, I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. I didn’t-- want to admit I wanted to see you again, at the time.”

“You reached into that drawer and stopped every time because--”

“The angle is awkward--”

“You knew anything but me would leave you _unsatisfied_.” He pulls Marvin close, and Marvin’s traitorous knees turn to jelly, like they always do. “Lie to me if you have to, honey, but tell me I’m right. Tell me you missed me.”

“I missed you.” He huffs a little, and then presents his throat to be kissed. “Hey-- be nice, no marks.”

“Mm, right, you’re not a masochist…” Whizzer laughs, and doesn’t go too heavy on the love bites. But he goes just heavy enough.

“You don’t have to say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you don’t believe me.”

“Well, Marvin… you got back in the ring with me, I figure you gotta be some kind of glutton for punishment.”

Marvin reaches past him, turns the knob, fumbles for the lightswitch. He’d managed to pick up, his floor isn’t littered with clothes, he’d done that for Whizzer. Just on the off-chance they’d come back to his.

“Then take me to bed and give it to me, I’m a glutton for _you_.” He demands, gently shoving Whizzer towards the bed.

“Oh-- Marvin…” Whizzer stops, still holding him, but his attention now on the room. “ _Marvin_ …”

“Please.”

“White sheets?”

“I’ll buy new ones.” He kisses hungrily-- desperately, desperate beyond mere hunger-- at Whizzer’s perfect jawline. Not that he’s sure what’s wrong with white sheets, which are perfectly normal, which they have slept and fucked on time and again in the past.

“White walls?” Whizzer continues, which… all right, so the problem isn’t the sheets, but the unbroken monotony of his empty room. Which is fair.

“I’ll paint them.”

“No art? No houseplants? No _stuff_? Honey…”

“Okay, so I haven’t done much with the place.”

“Have you been here _two years_?”

“I wanted to make Jason’s room nice. I don’t… mine hasn’t been… Okay. It’s… empty. My bed is white, my walls are white, my world is white. Blank. Missing you. Okay, I haven’t gone with other men, I haven’t even worked up the nerve or maybe just the _motivation_ to use a fucking vibrator by myself. I just-- Letting you go was the biggest mistake of my life, is that what you want me to say? But if I didn’t, then maybe I wouldn't have… I would never have become the man who could try to change for you. So I don’t know, I just know I-- Tonight, can you just… fuck me, and tomorrow I can worry about hanging art?”

“Well I’m definitely going to fuck you.” Whizzer breaks from his study of Marvin’s depressingly blank room to give his ass a conciliatory squeeze, to nuzzle at his cheek, and then he’s peeking into the equally bland en suite. “But then I’m going to buy you nicer towels.”

“I can buy my own towels.”

“And yet in two years you haven’t. These are the old towels.” He leans in, fingering one. “I recognize this rip. These are the towels Trina used to keep in the linen closet, the ones she said I could take if I needed a towel for a shower and she wanted to keep the set together so she didn’t throw any of the old ones out, but if you tried to put one of the old towels out on the towel rack where company we didn’t have could potentially see that not every towel in the house is brand new and fluffy and perfect--”

“We had enough towels, I moved out with a couple sets of old towels, it did everyone a favor.”

“Buy yourself some towels.” Whizzer sighs and kisses his nose. He wouldn’t have expected a sigh and a kiss to his nose to make his stomach flip like a pancake. “Buy yourself some _things_. Treat yourself nice. Treat yourself nice. This is a _nice_ apartment, Marvin, but it’s sad.”

“Yeah. Well.” He shrugs, summons up a smile. “You know me. I haven’t got any style.”

“I know.” He gives the room another look, a wan smile of his own, his arms slide around Marvin’s waist. “But… you put yourself together pretty nice tonight. I bet you could… bring a little life to the place.”

“We didn’t stick it out in an apartment long enough, before… I didn’t get the hang of-- You brought all the life in.”

Whizzer shakes his head. “I changed out the godawful curtains and bought the bathroom set and picked out the rug, hung a couple pictures. Sure. You brought the life in. I’d get home, to our well-curated apartment, drift through wondering what was missing, sit at the kitchen table cheating at solitaire--”

“How do you--”

“And then I’d hear the key in the lock. You’d turn another light on and say the apartment was too dark, it’s depressing. Turn off the TV I was never really watching and turn on the radio, or put on a record. Sometimes you’d bring flowers. And I could have done all of those things for myself. I could have turned another light on, or put on music instead of just having… noise on, to fill the space. I could have brought home flowers to make the place feel nicer, I’m the one who cared about having them and I could have bought them for myself. I mean I could have done a lot of things, but… I don’t know. I never felt like I was sitting in the dark, until you’d get home and put on the light. I know it wasn’t always good. But sometimes?”

“Sometimes it was perfect.”

“It really was.” Another sigh, another kiss, the two of them drifting into an embrace. “Think we could take care of each other without going nuts, this time?”

“I’m already nuts.” Marvin groans. “And I don’t have a shrink. But I think we could. I-- I’m better, than I was. I’m learning to relax. I’m not so competitive, I’m not so uptight. And I never take care of myself, but I could take care of you. I… you were never so hard to take care of, I was just stubborn, and an asshole.”

“You were a nightmare to take care of.” Whizzer grin, Whizzer holds him tight. “But I’m up to the challenge, if you’re gonna take care of me. Mm, you gonna take _care_ of me tonight, Marvin? You gonna make me feel good? You gonna give me everything I ever wanted?”

“I’m all yours, god, please let me be all yours.”

Whizzer chuckles, a low soft sound right in Marvin’s ear, warm, and he’s always been helpless for that chuckle, the sweet one, the sexy one. The one that might say he was teasing, but which was never mean. The one he’d spend long phone conversations hoping to hear, the one he’d go weak for at restaurants, in hotel rooms, old apartments… And then he’d have to pretend to be at least a little cool, at least a little in command, try and play the part of the suave older boyfriend he thought he was supposed to be. 

What a relief, not to play that game anymore.

He begs a kiss, a kiss is granted. He pushes to get Whizzer’s jacket off, they’re a flurry of uncoordinated motion trying to get each other naked, and then Whizzer is knelt before him, hands very much kneading at love handles, and he’s only half naked yet.

“Do I have to do everything myself?” Marvin laughs, gets his belt off while Whizzer is distracted-- barely has that done before there are lips warm against his stomach. Heading lower.

“Yes.” Whizzer groans into him, though he stops kneading long enough to get Marvin’s trousers down around his ankles-- and his mouth drifts lower, does a few very interesting things right through Marvin’s underwear. “No… no, I’m going to be good to you. You don’t have to do a damn _thing_ , I’m going to take such good care of you.”

“Baby…” Marvin’s head tilts back, both hands in Whizzer’s hair. Torn between stopping him and encouraging him.“Don’t get carried away with me just yet. Let me-- Put on some music if you want? And rest assured I am in fact capable of prepping without a fucking hand mirror. I just don’t like… everything. Everything that’s part of it.”

Putting on music is easy-- aside from the very basic bedroom set, the stereo is the only other thing in the room, that and the records themselves. And… well, and preparing is also easy. Awkward when he’s used to a very different vantage point, he’d never been able to let go and enjoy enough to think it was worth moving onto toys, he couldn’t spend the time on it. But it’s not like he’s spent two years not touching himself. Just… finding it unsatisfying. Getting just enough out of it to know he _would_ be satisfied, with someone, and to know he couldn’t quite find it for himself. Getting just enough out of it to know he needed this-- and being just sentimental enough to not be able to go out and get it anywhere else, when Whizzer was still so much on his mind.

“Okay.” Whizzer laughs, tugs his underwear down to kiss one hip, to tease with a touch, a breath, to finish getting him stripped. “Okay, I’ll put some music on. I’ll also do whatever you don’t like doing alone.”

“I mean it’s the… finish, that I have trouble with, which is the part you want to be involved in anyway, the fun part. But… yeah. Yeah. Give me a minute?”

“Mm-hm.”

He ducks into the en suite, freshens up a little in general as long as he’s there, unaccountably nervous. When he emerges, just-damp and slightly torn towel over a shoulder, Whizzer is standing over the stereo. Naked. 

He looks as good as he ever did. That lithe and supple body, those _legs_. Every elegant line of him… you could fool yourself into thinking he was just pretty, just soft and slender, if you came at him from the right angle, if you looked and didn’t touch, if he didn’t touch you… and he’s fine, from a distance, from an angle. But he’s better up close, he’s better if you touch. He’s best when he touches, when he grabs, when he’s firm and greedy… best when he shows off his muscle. 

Best, with the span of his shoulders, the hair on his chest, the firmness of his stomach-- enough softness over the muscle to leave the lines of him pretty, but everywhere Marvin touches he’s so solid beneath. The tone to his forearms, when he turns his sleeves up… Those thighs, he’s never been able to banish those thighs from his dreams. Or his hands. Big, sure hands… beautiful hands, even with the occasionally bitten nails. Strong hands. He’s thought about those hands a lot, the past couple years. Imagined them in such near-perfect detail, the shape of them, the flex of tendons… how warm and secure it could feel to have one wrap completely around his, sometimes. How the world would feel all right, in the times he could let it, if he focused on Whizzer’s hand holding onto his own. 

And it has been a _crime_ , Marvin has been committing a crime against nature, or at least against pleasure, every night he bowed to his hang-ups rather than allow that absolutely perfect cock to be put to use. Not that he hasn’t gotten plenty out of sucking him off, not that he hasn’t loved even just giving him a hand, not that it hasn’t been a joy above many others to rock against each other until someone gets off or someone makes a change, but he knew the night they met that he wanted to be fucked and he wasted so much time lying to them both, he wasted two whole years they might have been together completely because he needed to be ‘a man’ and he had some notions about what it meant to be one… because he couldn’t just let himself adore all the many things Whizzer is.

Among other issues, but most of them boiled down to manhood in one way or another. Insecurity. Immaturity. An inability to make fidelity to him an attractive option to begin with, thanks to his demands, his pigeonholing… Maybe Whizzer would have still needed to work his own out issues alone either way, but it didn’t help things that he forced him into a box. It didn’t help that it was a box neither of them really wanted him in.

Well. They’ve found their way back, both changed. Ready, for something too big to get a hold of the first time around. _Love_. Marvin knew commitment-- however badly he failed at it-- and Whizzer knew sex, and neither of them was prepared to fall in love when it hit them, they both had such different ideas about what they had to be together. And now…

Now Whizzer smiles at him, tender before his gaze roves over the rest of him-- tender even when it does-- and he starts the record playing. Ravel’s Bolero, which gives them time-- not that he imagines he’d notice it running out…

Whizzer joins him on the bed, kisses him slow, spreads him out under the roaming of those hands, gives him something for his hands to roam over in return. 

“I love your hands.” He sighs, before Marvin can say anything to the same effect.

“My hands?”

“Mm. You’re… delicate, with them. You’d stomp around and shout, when we fought, but you… you would slide your hand into mine, or touch my face sometimes, and suddenly… no matter how much I riled you up, it was like… there was this… I mean, and I take responsibility for my part in the stomping and the shouting, we both pushed. And I got off on it. But there was this… this boy inside you. Waiting to be gentle-- waiting for permission to be. Neither of us ever knew how to give permission, for that, but he’d bleed through. You’d slide your hand into mine, like you weren’t sure which one of us was about to break.”

“I think we both were. We were always on the verge of it.”

“I felt like he was my secret. Like maybe… this was a Marvin no one else got to see. A Marvin no one else got to touch-- something your wife never got to touch first. Maybe… something only I could bring out. I mean call me stupid--”

“You’re not.” He shakes his head. “You bring things out in me. I mean-- good things, too. And… there’s a lot of me, that only you bring out.”

“Yeah?” Whizzer laces their fingers together, smiles warmly down at their hands. 

“Like the real me. When you’d break past… I don’t know. Some kind of… macho wall-- yes, yes, I know, not very macho. Mostly just hung up about not being man _enough_. Except sometimes… the times you’d reach for me. And a door was open. And there was still so much I couldn’t say, but I could reach back. Be soft. Feel… something, coming from you.”

“Those were good times.” His voice is soft, he brings Marvin’s hand to his lips. “When we could reach out… even if we couldn’t say what we wanted to. The times when it felt like we were just ourselves… I wish we’d had more of those. But… here’s to second chances.”

“And first times?” Marvin raises an eyebrow. Whizzer chuckles, kissing his throat, his chest. He digs the astroglide out of his nightstand drawer despite the distraction of Whizzer’s lips, the occasional touch of his tongue, one electrifying scrape of teeth. 

“Mm, mm-hm, and to those…”

“I never felt like I was a real person, a living person, until the first time you kissed me. You brought me to life. Do it again…” He guides Whizzer back up to kiss him full on the mouth. “Whizzer-- make me feel alive again.”

“Oh…” He sighs, rests their foreheads together. “Come here, honey… how do you want to do this?”

“You pick.” Marvin smiles, cupping his cheek, relinquishing the lube. 

“Me pick?”

“You pick. You’d know. What feels best?”

“Depends. I could give you the pros and the cons for every position.” He says, but he’s grabbing for a pillow, getting the towel over it, getting it under Marvin’s hips, urging him to relax with all the warmth and confidence in his touch. “Or we could just go missionary.”

“Boring.” Marvin teases, can remember Whizzer saying as much, once upon a time. Goading him into something acrobatic.

“But it lets us kiss.” Whizzer cups his cheek, recalling Marvin’s old argument in favor of the pedestrian.

At the time, he’d wound up fucking Whizzer over the arm of the sofa, forehead against his sweating back, his own back protesting, his legs bent at a weird angle to make it all work. 

“So kiss me.”

“It’s easier than you think it’ll be.”

“Kissing?”

Whizzer snorts, and kisses him, and uncaps the lube. 

“Everything. Everything is going to be easier than you think it will be.” He promises, and this time Marvin doesn’t think he means sex.

Although, it is. It’s much easier to let Whizzer tease him, distract him with kisses, press in when he’s trembling for want of it and get him slick, get him primed to take more, get him used to something _there_ , and he’s not twisting around to try for something too shallow, he’s just… _feeling_ , and the feeling’s good. 

“Like that, honey?” Whizzer murmurs, lips sliding against his jaw. Fingers pumping in and out of him in time to the music. None of the awkwardness or unsatisfaction of trying to do for himself, none of the boredom and ennui he’s suffered no matter what he did alone. 

“I want you in me.”

“Yeah? Ready for the main event?”

“Since the night we met. Since the night we met.” Marvin groans. Since the hotel at least, he remembers enough of their first time to be sure of that. But… had he been avoiding the thought, on the dance floor? Likely. That was when he first got a sense for Whizzer, for how he moved, for the impact of chemistry. When he went from being a pretty boy with a beautiful laugh, to a _man_ , broad-chested, physical… “You were so much I was never supposed to want, and I wanted you…”

“You were everything I was never supposed to want. I wanted you.”

“Tall… strong… a man.” He sighs. “One who could put me to shame in just about any arena...”

“ _Married_.”

“Be nice.”

Whizzer’s expression softens, looking down at him. “Frumpy. Squishy. Cute as hell, but not the kind of guy I used to go for. Terrifyingly ready to commit, by comparison. A closet case. Everything I swore I wouldn’t spend my time on all wrapped up in one man. So why couldn’t I get you out of my head?”

“Thank god for that fancy watch.”

“Watch nothing. Thank _God_ for you. For you in my way, for you in my head, for every single day you made me crazy, for the days you made me _miserable_ , I could thank God for that. For you.”

“I’m ashamed of a lot of what I’ve done, things I’ve said, but I’m not sorry.” He cups Whizzer’s cheek. “For a single day I spent with you. Even the misery was beautiful, compared to life without you. Besides, I’m equipped to be miserable… but in no time at all, I forgot how to live without _you_.”

“Marvin…”

“Now are you going to fuck me or not?”

“You fucking pain in the ass, that was almost romantic.” Whizzer laughs. “God, I love you.”

“I love you, too. I love you too.”

Saying it’s freedom, saying it’s bliss. Saying it is everything he never dared. That first time around, it seemed an impossible hurdle, but now… now it comes, now it flows, now he can show it.

“I love you.” Whizzer says, all warmth, all softness. 

Well, not _all_ softness. He hitches Marvin’s leg up around his waist, shifts against him, presses in, goes slow, slides home, and it’s…

So much more, so much better, so much hotter, so much sweeter. For a moment, he can’t breathe. Whizzer holds still, kisses him to life again, until he can move past the lump in his throat, the immensity of feeling swelling his chest. And, he supposes, adjusting to the physical side. He _likes_ the physical side. 

This is _right_. Not that they were always wrong, before, they were right often enough… there were good times before they had bad ones. And in between. But… it’s a little more right like this, under Whizzer.

“Hey, hey… Good?”

“Good.” He nods, reaches up to trail fingertips lightly over Whizzer’s face-- familiar, yet different, from how it once was. The same, but better. “Great. Move?”

“ _Yeah_.”

“Whizzer…”

Whizzer groans, lips finding Marvin’s throat, the hinge of his jaw. The roll of his hips starts slow, but it still sets off sparks… it still feels…

_Beyond_ , beyond everything else. Maybe anything would, after two years apart… but he’s glad it’s this. The stretch of taking him, the way they fit, and just being able to give in at last. To what Whizzer wants, to what he does. To _desire_ , hot and sharp, which roils inside him, which always has, which he’s always resisted, and he’s _free_ now… he’s free now, and it feels _incredible_.

It’s nothing like what he’d been afraid of. He doesn’t feel any less masculine than he was, he doesn’t feel any less anything… he feels _more_ , though he couldn’t say what he feels more like or more of. Just _more_. More _himself_.

It’s not just the sex, maybe, but the sex is a part of it, the freedom from old expectations, rigid ways of thinking, the acceptance of every part of his desire and not just the parts he could dress up and make respectable, like he could be straight _enough_ and he wouldn’t have to worry about the ugly parts of life, like he could ignore everything he didn’t like if he had some veneer of respectability, if he held it together, if he wanted what he spent his whole life trying to tell himself he wanted… or if he could want something like it. He made himself miserable for so long, but now…

Now all of that is gone, and there’s just Whizzer. Whizzer above him, Whizzer inside him, Whizzer kissing him and touching him and _loving_ him in breathy groans. The look in his eye, when he pulls back from kissing him, when he just looks down at him with an adoration Marvin couldn’t earn in a hundred lifetimes. 

If he got a hundred lifetimes to try in, though, he’d never stop working for it. Not now. And with only one lifetime guaranteed him, he’ll work all the harder, he’ll make this second chance work. 

He’ll do whatever it takes, to hold onto this. Falling in love all over again, being looked at the way Whizzer looks at him, kissed the way Whizzer kisses… the lack of any reservation between them now. All the things they withheld once are free, and…

Well, and the sex. Of course also the sex. Now he knows exactly what Whizzer used to direct him to and why, the electric all-over thrill, the joy of it, the little jolts of pleasure that threaten to overwhelm, and the gentler pleasure, no less sweet, that comes just from having him, just from holding him, just from stretching to be filled by him… And what a pleasure it is. What a pleasure everything about him is.

“You’re so fucking big…” He moans, is clinging to Whizzer’s shoulders as if for dear life, is rocked by him on every thrust. They spent long enough on foreplay that the record’s come to a stop, but Whizzer is still moving in time with the rhythm he’d set to it. Marvin could almost hear the music still.

“Fuck, Marv… yeah, Marvin, that’s right, honey, that’s… _fuck_ …”

Into that, he’s into that? Well, stands to reason. Who wouldn’t be? They’ve never excelled at dirty talk that wasn’t on the combative side. When fighting was foreplay they could make it filthy, but praise had always been halting, awkward, too honest. Kept to acceptable avenues. There’d been so much they couldn’t allow themselves then, but it’s different now.

Marvin licks his lips, tries to catch his breath. Catches Whizzer’s eye. “You’re _so_ big, baby, I knew you’d be good to me… it’s so good, I could never give myself the feeling-- feeling you give me…”

“Tell me I’m the best you’ve ever had.” Whizzer begs, desperate, rhythm faltering. 

“You’re the _only_. You _know_ you’re the only-- the only man I want, the only man who could ever, _ever_ …” He trails off on a moan-- one the Marvin of two years ago might have been embarrassed by. “Oh-- oh, _Whizzer_ …”

“That’s right, that’s-- unh-- yeah, that’s-- _fuck_ \-- I’m all you need, I-- I’ve got you, I’ve got you, I’m gonna… gonna make you feel so good…”

Marvin nods, struggles to regain his voice as Whizzer starts stroking him off, roughly in time with his thrusts, as Whizzer devours his throat with kisses. As Whizzer _takes_ him, he takes him so high, he has him incoherent with it, at the end. Has him stammering out a refrain of ‘only you’ until he’s…

_Loud_.

He shocks himself with it. He’s made noise before, yes, he always made noise in bed with Whizzer, but he’s never let himself go before, not fully. 

Not like this.

But Whizzer’s loud, too, groans not quite muffled at Marvin’s throat-- a _shout_ , not muffled at all, his head thrown back, and Marvin…

Marvin had thought it was over, for him, and then his whole world goes… bright and fizzy with pleasure, electric with pleasure, overwhelming with pleasure. He comes twice. He didn’t think he could do that, not without a rest. Even at their most… fervid, he’d needed a break. But this, he supposes, is different-- maybe more continuation than separate event? He couldn’t say, he couldn’t say. 

He feels… _satisfied_ , in ways that are more than merely sexual. As Whizzer pulls out and rolls over onto his back, the satisfied feeling remains, bone-deep. 

“That was…” Whizzer heaves a sigh.

“Yeah.”

“ _You_ were…”

“ _You_.” Marvin nods. Fumbles for his hand, breaks out in a wide, easy smile as Whizzer fits their hands together. Warm. Safe. He’s never felt so safe. And Whizzer, flushed and glistening and still-hard, grinning right back at him. “You’re all I need. You are.”

“I’ve never been… no one’s… called me _enough_ before.”

“Haven’t I? I should have.”

“You have now.” Whizzer squeezes his hand. “And… Marv… I’ve never called someone else enough, before. It’s something… it’s something I wanted. You’re not the only one who couldn’t admit to what he wanted… needed. But you are. You’re all I want. All I need.”

He shifts, rolling onto his side, free hand coming to rest over Marvin’s chest. 

“You really are the only man for me. Not just… not just sex.” He brushes a kiss over their interlocked fingers. “I trust you with things I couldn’t trust someone else with. And I want you for things I don’t want anyone else for. There are plenty of handsome men out there… but there’s just one Whizzer Brown.”

“And the one and only Whizzer Brown has just discovered he’s a one-fella guy. If I start a shower, will you join me? Let me get you clean?”

“Yeah. In a minute.” Marvin beams. Kisses Whizzer’s hand one last time before letting him go. His legs are a little shaky, his gait a little uneven, when he leaves the bed. 

The shower is quick, they spend it all over each other, the way they once did-- better, though, sweeter. Stumble back into bed and tuck themselves in naked.

“Mm.” Whizzer grabs at him, squeezes, snuggles in close and throws a leg across Marvin’s. “Missed this… teddy bear.”

“ _Koala_ bear.” Marvin snorts, ruffles his damp hair and makes no protest at having it tucked between his chin and shoulder. “Love you, too.”

“Love you.”


	5. Taking the Shot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They don't wait long before the next date... and Marvin learns something about Whizzer-- and learns how to let go of something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, nothing bad happens in the course of this fic. Homophobia is, like... a thing in the world, which Marvin is briefly concerned about-- and which Whizzer discusses his response to, between reclaiming slurs and just being ready to fight people-- but they don't encounter any in-story. Just figured since it's touched on a little and worried about that I would add in a note to reassure that, like... they have a nice evening out without so much as being glared at despite doing some blatant flirting, because dammit sometimes we just need a break.

Keeping up with Whizzer is… fun, actually. He was always so afraid it wouldn’t be, if Whizzer ever invited him to do something he wasn’t already good at, if Whizzer offered to teach him something, if he was afraid he couldn’t win.

He likes winning, sure, but… he feels so far from the Marvin who couldn’t prioritize anything else. 

He credits that to Jason. On the past couple of years’ worth of weekends-- on the better parts of better weekends-- he and Jason played chess. They did other things, sometimes, they tried, but… Chess was their shared comfort zone. And Whizzer had called one thing-- they’re alike, both… rigid. Marvin had always liked to win, knew no other way of proving himself but to excel at the few things he knew he could. Jason liked to control the board, to play both sides, to keep anyone else’s influence _out_. 

Back when Jason was little, when he’d first noticed the chess board, they’d been able to bond over it, something they lost over time, lost when Jason demanded his independence and when Marvin didn’t know how to keep that distance seeping in… but back when he was little, old enough to start to learn, Marvin could walk him through the best moves. And it wasn’t losing, not really, if he was teaching Jason how to win. 

Now, Jason doesn’t need to be told what moves to make. After the lessons, and after buying him every book on chess he could find, and after being made redundant to his son’s love of the game, and after working his way into the occasional whisper of his good graces… now, on weekends, they just play-- sometimes-- and when they do, sometimes Jason wins. Not because Marvin coaches him, but because he’d studied on his own.

And Marvin is… _proud_. And there is no crawling sense of the loss of some part of himself, no fear he’s just become worth less, worthless. Maybe because Jason is his, maybe because he did teach him once, even if the books taught him more. Maybe because he loves him, and maybe just because he’s doing better. But, if he can lose to one person he loves, and be fine, he can take a chance on honest competition. On being all right with failure.

They’d gone out to dinner on Wednesday, and in the morning after breakfast, they both have work-- not to mention Whizzer’s need to head home to shower where his clothes are, and on Thursday night Whizzer shows up asking to take him out again, and Marvin doesn’t ask where, he just says yes, as giddy as if they hadn’t seen each other in days, and so when Whizzer takes him to shoot pool, he makes the decision to keep up with him.

Whizzer, as always, looks perfect. Casual, but impeccable, in a pale pink tee shirt that hugs his body so closely it could be _tailored_ , in a blazer he shrugs out of when they get through the door. Cuffed jeans, a flash of bare ankle. How he could stand the whole sockless look, Marvin could never figure, the very idea makes him sweaty. 

Marvin… is casual, but very much not impeccable. His jeans fit well enough, but his shirt is just the one he’d worn to work, only half-untucked and without tie since his changing into jeans, and he never realizes how wrinkled he gets by the end of the day until all of a sudden he’s out on a date with Whizzer and letting Whizzer take his sweatshirt-- also a poor choice-- and noticing himself… rumpled. 

“A dive like this and you’ve still got me feeling underdressed.” He jokes, his eyes following Whizzer as he hangs up both blazer and sweatshirt. Struck, by the way Whizzer’s hand lingers on the sleeve of said sweatshirt, the smile on his face.

“Don’t be silly. I’m just… _over_.” He shrugs. “Always. A tasteful little bit.”

“At least I can say I’m dressed for slumming it.” Marvin spreads his arms. It’s an exaggeration, but it doesn’t feel like one. Ask anyone who between the two of them was pulling an executive salary and who was very much not, and no one would pick Marvin out as being the one with money. Especially not now that Whizzer wears the very nice watch Marvin bought him on what he maintains is their real anniversary, and Marvin-- unless he has cause to dress up particularly well-- wears one Jason had bought him for his birthday a couple years back.

One which does not catch the eye of pretty boys accustomed to mercenary dating choices, but then, he’d already caught the only eye he wanted.

“Mm, looks good on you. You didn’t have those jeans two years ago, either.” Whizzer says, circling him. He gives Marvin’s ass a slap, which reads as jocular, rambunctious, not sexual-- not if you didn’t hear him, or catch the look on his face. As far as the crowd is concerned, as far as body language goes, Whizzer is any young man goading a friend into an evening of good, clean competitive fun.

“I guess I didn’t.” Marvin manages to say, even though he does see the look on Whizzer’s face, and moreover remembers last night’s teasing in glorious technicolor, breathtaking cinemascope, and stereophonic sound. _Come on, Marvin, never know unless you try… and a little spanking once in a while is_ fun.

This time, it hadn’t been intentional, to dress for Whizzer, he’d been surprised by him. He’d hoped to hang his work pants up and get another day out of them, had pulled on a pair of jeans before cooking dinner, and then all dinner plans had been interrupted by the doorbell… but if Whizzer likes the jeans, Marvin’s not complaining. If Whizzer wants to maybe slap his ass again, he’s not complaining. He knows Whizzer likes it-- not an actual _spanking_ , or at least they’ve never done that, exactly, but… those little love taps in passing, like any couple might do, like when your lover is washing dishes at the sink and you’re scooting past to grab the towel and dry, and you let one fly, not hard. Or when you’re heading for the bedroom and you’re in a rush, and you aim a swat his way to hurry him up. And maybe he says ‘ooh, do it again’ and it comes out a little bit like a joke, but you give him just one good smack while you’re balls deep in his ass, an ass you could bounce a quarter off of, and he _moans_ and then _you_ moan, but you never do it again, or you never do a lot of it, you never do it more than once or twice at a time because you can’t think about being into that, and you don’t really know if he’s into it, or if he’s just into anything you two do in bed together, really, and you think maybe you’re just into touching him any way you can and you’re afraid you don’t know how, not how to touch him the way he deserves, but if you just smack his ass once, it makes that sound and maybe it stings for half a second, but it doesn’t hurt and it doesn’t leave a mark and it’s probably _okay_ if you only like it a little bit, and…

Head in the _game_ , Marvin, head in the game… He’s not going to play pool with an ill-timed erection, they’re in a public place and he’s not skilled enough to make up for the distraction anyway.

“You know, I haven’t done this since college.” He admits, as Whizzer claims a table, as he grabs their cues. “Which… was a while ago.”

“Were you any good? College boy?” Whizzer grins, snagging him by a belt loop and reeling him in close. They’re in public, the move sets off alarm bells in a way the smack on the ass did not, he doesn’t protest it. It’s as intoxicating as it ever was to be close to him. It makes him feel like himself again. Alive. No one’s looking… no one sees this. It’s only a moment, but it’s an exhilarating moment.

“As good as the people I was playing with. The table was lopsided, which we blamed everything on. No, I wasn’t.”

“You want me to help you?”

“I don’t need help.” He starts, defensive in spite of his best intentions. He hates the flicker of hurt, or doubt-- the flicker of something which is not unbridled happiness, that he sees cross Whizzer’s face. 

“Sure, sure. Fair and square, then.” Whizzer moves away another step, starts chalking his cue.

“Wait--” Marvin takes a half step after him. “If… if I’m terrible at this… maybe I could-- take you up on that offer, before a rematch?”

“Sure. If you do want to call a rematch, I’ll give you some pointers.” His smile blossoms all over again, a little swagger back in his step. “You want to break?”

“Go ahead, by all means.” He shifts back to give Whizzer space. And to give himself a very pleasant view of the man, bent over nearly horizontal to eye up the table and make his shot-- unnecessarily, really. Marvin is pretty sure a break is a break, even if he hasn’t played in a while. It just seems like the least crucial shot of the game. But… it would be just like him to show off. And that’s something else Marvin can’t complain about. 

He doesn’t do well, his first couple of turns. It fills him with more dread than he thinks is right. He’d thought he was ready to be bad at something, but then he finds himself sweaty, hands shaking, as he steps up to the table, silently praying for the ability to sink just one ball, to show he’s not completely pointless here. 

“Marv?” Whizzer stops him, a hand moving to the small of his back. “You all right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

“You want a drink? Bite to eat?” He rubs at his back now, warm. “Come on, Marv, let’s take a breather.”

“I’m all right--”

“You want a drink?”

“ _No_. I’m… bad at this.”

“Yeah, I noticed you’re not great. Though I _suspect_ that’s a ploy to get a very special hands-on lesson from teacher.” 

“I wish… I wish it was. I’m just… not very good.” He swallows back a rising feeling of bile at the back of his throat. “Worse than I remember being, actually.”

“Marvin lays it on thick…” Whizzer plasters himself to his back then, grabs his cue, grabs his hand. “Come on… get that cue up-- or did you need me to help with that, too? I know what you’re after.”

“Whizzer…”

“Shh… hey.” His voice is suddenly tender, free from come-on. “You know it’s okay if you’re bad at something, right?”

“Is it? I mean-- I know it _is_. Obviously. I just… Is it?”

“Yeah. You can be bad at this. What, did you think I’d… laugh at you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Like you less?”

“Maybe.”

“Not very smart of you, college boy. I didn’t bring you out tonight to… test you, to see if you could impress me. _I_ wanted to impress _you_.”

Oh. That… makes sense.

“Oh.” Marvin nods, feeling a little lightheaded. He swallows. “That makes sense.”

“Yeah. I mean… I thought I’d… pay for a night out-- I know, it’s not fancy. And… pick something where I could flex a little muscle. You always used to-- We’d play chess, and scrabble, and you’d take me out to _nice_ restaurants, and to the theatre, which you knew everything about, and you were always _smart_ and you were always _good_ at things, and you pulled in the big money at your job, and all I ever was was hot. Nice face, nice body, good in bed, but… I don’t know, I thought this time around, maybe… I could show you I’m good at a few other things.”

“I never realized you wanted-- I mean… I always thought, I was the one who had to keep… I had to show you what I had, that other men didn’t have. I was never going to choose anyone but you. My job was keeping you impressed, so you’d… keep choosing me, at the end of the day.”

“ _Shit_.” Whizzer sighs. “Really did that one to myself, then.”

“Well… if we’d talked for two minutes.” Marvin chuckles weakly. “All right, what am I doing? If I don’t take this shot, people are going to get the right idea about us.”

“Well don’t worry, honey, if someone hassles you, I’ll wipe the floor with him. Now… line it up, you wanna hit that ball just right, not too much force. Not too low on the ball, it changes the spin and you just want to tap this one _real_ gentle, and pull the cue _right_ back, because it’s going to ricochet right back when the balls make contact. Speed, not force, not too high and not too low-- you feel this angle we’re at? If you want to keep control of the table, you’ve gotta know how the ball wants to move. Every shot is different, but the rules are all the same. Now… take your shot.”

Despite his body’s rather predictable reaction to Whizzer’s very special hands-on lesson, he manages to pull off the shot Whizzer had envisioned, sinking his first ball of the game. 

“Hey!” Whizzer laughs and claps him on the back. “See? All you have to do is listen to me, Marvin, and look at what you get.”

He turns, giving Whizzer a once-over-- slow enough for Whizzer to catch, not too obvious to the crowd, or so he hopes. “I’m looking at what I get.”

“Go on, line up your next shot-- ah! Here, come around to the other side, bank it off the side rail there, aim right for that diamond. Go ahead and put just a _little_ more power behind it, you’re going to bounce off the cushion and knock into number six there, got that?”

“Got it.” He nods. He’s not exactly confident, he doesn’t do it exactly right, but he’s close, and Whizzer is enthusiastic.

“If you ever need me to help you set up a shot again…”

“No, thank you, I think those very special hands-on lessons are a ploy to distract me.” Marvin laughs. 

“I get a cheap thrill out of it.” Whizzer grins, snaps his teeth at him. “But I get a cheap thrill out of looking, too. That _ass_ , Marvin…”

“Shush. Take your shot.”

“Does not _quit_.”

“Play the game, take your shot, don’t be…” He waves a hand, tries to ignore the heat rising to his cheeks. “Foolish.”

“I’m a fool for what I’m a fool for. I kind of think being foolish pleasant.”

“Take your shot.” He says, blushes all over again at the way Whizzer eyes him and has to turn away. “Take your _shot_.”

“Thought that was what we were doing.”

“I’m a sure thing. So is this game. Go ahead and play.”

Whizzer waits until he’s looking, gets his hip up against the table and pulls a shot off with his back turned.

“Okay, that’s unfair, how did you do that?”

“Practice, honey.”

“When’d you get so good at it, then?” He comes to lean against the opposite side of the table, watches him line up another shot. 

“I dunno. It’s like a lot of things. I played sports, back in high school, you know.”

“Mm. I remember, you told me.” Marvin nods, reaches out to slide his hand along the shaft of Whizzer’s cue. “Baseball, track, and tennis.”

He’d lettered in all three, before he had to drop out. It was where they started calling him ‘Whizzer’, or so he’d said, once. He’d said ‘I move fast’, the words dripping with innuendo, and then they’d both forgotten to trade further reminiscences. 

“Well, pool is just… slower and less demanding. You can actually take the time to line up your shot, but it’s still… I don’t know. Just understanding the angles, and how hard you have to go, and where the ball will go once you’ve hit it. So… if I could play baseball, and tennis, and run hurdles, and high jump, and throw a javelin, and _all that_ is happening at speed… pool was pretty easy to pick up. I played for money, a little bit, at seventeen. Let people underestimate me.”

“Wait, you were a pool shark? How did you never tell me this?” Marvin laughs. It’s not funny, exactly, but he’s so filled with wonder at this new piece of Whizzer that it can’t come out of him any other way. 

“I don’t know… I guess I just… when things were good, we had so much to say to each other that I never got to it. And when things were bad… well.”

“Yeah. I wish you’d told me.” He aches to touch Whizzer’s cheek, looking at him now and seeing his grin bounce back from the dead. Aches to rest his hand at Whizzer’s stomach, feel him warm through that tight tee shirt, feel the thrill of being a few inches from his waistband. He doesn’t do either, there’s only so much attention he’s comfortable courting here. 

“I’d get kicked out sometimes. “

“For hustling?”

“For being a kid.” He snorts. “At first. You had to be eighteen to do anything worth doing. At least if it meant hitting the bars. But yeah, for hustling, at a couple places. And for-- I mean, you know. I’d get stuff pinned on me. Whether or not I’d ever done anything. Just making trouble… I mean, I was a wild child, I’d get hit with the blame if a fight broke out sometimes.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Well… it didn’t help my case if I won most of those fights.” Whizzer shrugs, all false modesty, a flutter of the lashes, a puffing-out of the chest.

“Tough guy.” Marvin gives in, Marvin smiles, Marvin touches. His hand strays from Whizzer’s shoulder to his chest, brief. To his waist. “Did you really?”

“I was angry, I had a chip on my shoulder, if someone started trouble I usually wasn’t far behind. Ex-high school athlete who’d just lost every good thing, I guess I had a lot to throw into fighting… but throwing the first punch was never my style. Maybe once or twice I provoked one. I never hid what I was. At nineteen I was wearing tee shirts that said things like ‘gay’ and ‘queer’ and ‘proud’ and ‘that’s Mister Faggot to you’ and I was learning how to fight _harder_. Any anger I lost since getting kicked out at seventeen, Stonewall lit the fire back under. I mean I wasn’t there, when it happened, but I heard about it, I was ready for the next one.”

“When Stonewall happened, I was getting married. I mean, not at the same time, obviously, but… that was when I was getting married. Around then. Everyone I wished I could be was getting arrested and I was getting married. I wasn’t… very brave.”

“Sure you were.” Whizzer shrugs. “Brave’s just doing whatever terrifies the shit out of you, and marriage counted. But you had a kid on the way and you had to man up for Jason, even if it meant giving something up.”

“I wasn’t living enough of a life to give up. And… well, and then you and I met, and I wasn’t giving up much of anything. Maybe I wouldn’t change anything. I-- I would change how I acted, but not what I did. Whose turn is it?”

“Who knows? You go. Show me what you’re picking up.”

He’s not confident. He can fake it. The ball he knocks in is one of Whizzer’s, which is not what he was going for, but he laughs anyway, and Whizzer slings an arm around him. Doesn’t kiss his cheek but bumps their heads together before letting him go.

“Sorry, that was yours. I don’t know how we score that.”

“That’s fine, you can play with my balls if you want to.”

“Asshole.” Marvin shoves at him, struggling valiantly not to find him so amusing.

“You can play with that, too, if you want to.”

“I can’t believe you.”

“Sorry, is this a _nice place_?” Whizzer cackles. “That I should be careful not to offend?”

They don’t really pay attention to things like winning and losing and which balls are whose, after that-- instead, they take turns and they clear the table, and they focus more on Whizzer teaching Marvin what he’s doing than on scoring.

Well, Whizzer’s focused on scoring, but not at pool. He moves close, so he can ‘help’, his hips against Marvin’s ass, his hands moving everywhere, grabbing at his hips, his sides, his shoulders, his wrists, his hands… Whizzer covers him, teases him, distracts and works him up… but he also gives him solid advice.

“I’ll take that drink now.” Marvin sighs, watching Whizzer sink the last ball-- another trick shot. “Buy me something to eat and then you can take me for another round and keep track of how badly you’re beating me.”

“Are you gonna be okay with that? I need to know you’re okay with that.”

He supposes he does-- it’s a reasonable thing to need to know… to need to see he’s changed. Knowing the why behind it doesn’t mean a damn thing if Marvin’s still going to be an asshole about it.

“I’m okay with that. Maybe not great. But okay.” He nods. Screws up his courage to touch Whizzer’s face. “Go a little easy on me? I mean-- play to win, just… I think we’ve hit the point where you draping yourself over me is a distraction more than it’s a help.”

“Have we now?”

“I think we hit that point pretty early on, but I kept letting you do it because it’s a very pleasant distraction. But if I’m going to play to win…”

“Play to win, play to win. Touching’s off limits.” He agrees. “But you’re gonna be looking at my ass when I line my shots up.”

“And you’re gonna be looking at mine. Buy me a beer. And whatever you can get to eat here.”

“Not a whole lot. We’ll pick up something better after, if you want. Or… back to my place.”

Marvin nods. “I’d like that. I think you promised me a tour.”

“I sure did.” He winks. Turns towards the bar-- Marvin watches the shift in his posture. Flirtation drops away, the swagger remains, all tough guy confidence. He can see the lost boy spoiling for a fight in him, the way he moves, the way he holds himself as he slides between the men at the bar. The way they make space for him. 

Marvin isn’t a big beer drinker, really, but this isn’t the kind of place he thinks you order a cocktail or a glass of wine in, and so he leaves the details in Whizzer’s hands, smiles when he sees him coming back with two bottles in hand. Easier to keep hold of while playing than glasses, perhaps. 

Or, he realizes, watching Whizzer uncap his against the bottle opener mounted on the wall, watching him take his first long pull, because there’s a certain visual appeal at play. Touching may be off limits, but there are other ways of distracting a man. 

Like wrapping your lips around the neck of a bottle and throwing your head back, showing off the lines of your throat while swallowing, adam’s apple bobbing, eyes closed. The theatrical satisfied sigh after. Things you can’t do with a glass of whatever might be on tap. Things Whizzer has a talent for.

“You break this time.” Whizzer says, leans against the wall with one hand at his belt. He looks…

He looks sweet and sultry. In different shoes, in a shirt a shade less pink, he’d look less like he’d be at home lounging on a yacht and more like a wet dream off the cover of one of the pulp novels Marvin used to sneak longing looks at, about rough boys in pool halls.

Which he imagines is the point, of the pose and the pout.

So he breaks, and watches Whizzer sink his first shot effortlessly, and they move around the table and each other, and Marvin…

Loses.

Badly.

And it’s kind of worth it for the distraction that Whizzer provides, with his posing and his pouting, and the way he holds his bottle, hand resting against his hip. And the way he toys with his cue when he’s not making a shot.

And the way he comes over and chalks the end of Marvin’s for him, which he can’t believe no one else sees as something so indecently filthy as it is-- at least, it is the way Whizzer does it, and with the look Whizzer gives.

He doesn’t lose so badly on their third game, though he does lose.

“You wanna get out of here?” Whizzer asks.

“Back to your place?”

“And pick up pizza on the way?”

“I’d like that. And, uh… we didn’t formalize any kind of wager, but I’d say you… pretty well trounced me. If there was something you wanted to win from me?”

Whizzer grins, gives him a _slow_ once over, and shrugs into Marvin’s sweatshirt, before handing over his own blazer. 

“I’ll hold onto this as collateral, but I’ve got some ideas.”


	6. Working For the Weekend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marvin isn't the only one Whizzer has a lot of catching up to do with.

They spend Friday together as well. Marvin leaves work early, because he’s spent two years staying late more often than not, because he can, and he finally lets Whizzer drag him off to play racquetball in the middle of the afternoon, which is hell. 

“Well? What do you think?”

“I think I’m out of shape.” He huffs, doubled over, head resting against Whizzer. “I think I’m dying.”

“You gonna play with me again?” Whizzer runs a hand through his hair, tugs just a little, and Marvin comes over all helpless.

“No.” He lies. “Never again.”

“You’re not in such terrible shape. What have you been doing to get those _biceps_ , those are _definitely_ new.”

“Every weekend I haul eleven and a half pounds from Jason’s stop to his room and then I haul it back.” He says. Jason’s Apple II, which he insists on bringing-- does Mendel help him carry it, on the other end? Or does Trina do it herself once she get Jason home? He doesn’t know why Jason insists on it, when there is a desk in the living room with an Apple III sitting right on it, which is his for the asking at any time over the weekend, which uses the exact same disks so he could pack his games or a disk for homework assignments, or whatever else it is he wants. But Jason wants _his_ computer, which became his last year when Marvin bought the III and told Jason he should keep the II, and so every weekend he carries all eleven and a half pounds up from the stop to Jason’s own desk, and then back down.

“Is that a lot of hauling?” Whizzer’s fingers dance down his spine, Marvin shivers.

“It’s great for my biceps and great for my chiropractor.” He laughs weakly and lets Whizzer haul him upright. “I’ll give racquetball one thing… I suddenly feel a lot better about how I did at pool. And _you_ …”

“Yeah?”

“You… are something else.” He tugs him in for a kiss. They don’t part by much. “Firing on all cylinders. Working out angle, force, velocity, trajectory, all while _in motion_ , I can’t figure out how you could have been failing math in high school.”

“Because they never asked me to figure out _angles_ or _velocity_ or… any of that, in high school, they asked me to solve for X and work in base twelve and look at the four in the tens’ place, none of which is a _game_. And because it was more fun to make out with my tutor.”

“Mm, it’s definitely more fun to make out with your tutor, which is why I’m never going to get good at any of this if I have any say in it.” Marvin grins and kisses him again. As long as they have the court to themselves, he may as well kiss him… and really, in Whizzer’s sports club, he could kiss him even with an audience. “I’m just going to let you do whatever you want to me.”

“I want to play racquetball.”

“What happened to your libido? Where’s the insatiable Whizzer I remember?”

“Well… we’ll still have to think of something to do once our time on the court is up.” He gives Marvin’s ass a quick squeeze, over almost before it’s begun. “I had _fun_ , Marvin. I’m really glad you came with.”

“Well… it’s not the worst date we’ve had.”

“So you’ll do this again?”

“Mm, love you, too.”

“That’s what I like to hear. Love you.” He grins.

“I’m sweaty. I’m gross.” He throws his arms around Whizzer, thrills at the warmth in his laugh. “Love me anyway?”

“I love you anyway. I beat your ass, love me anyway?”

“You beat it, you bought it, mister.” He gives Whizzer’s a pat for emphasis. “Love you always.”

Whizzer rubs their noses together, _cute_. Marvin’s hands drift to his chest, Whizzer’s hands come to cover his wrists, thumbs rubbing over the backs of his hands. He could melt, he is melting, it’s such a delightful feeling. It’s the smallest things sometimes, which makes him feel as if everything is going to be all right this time. Not because they’re all different-- sometimes the things are the same, but it’s _Marvin_ that’s different, Marvin allowing himself to enjoy the sweetness more fully, Marvin allowing Whizzer to express what he needs to, Marvin remembering what it was to lose these moments and knowing this time he’ll do whatever it takes to keep them.

“What if we just… spent the rest of the day together?” He asks, his hands covering Marvin’s, making him feel held, safe. “What if I didn’t go home alone?”

“Mm… baby, I’m afraid I’ve got plans tonight, with the only boy I love more than you. It’s the weekend.”

“Right, right--”

“Come home with me.” He says, impulsive. “It won’t be a full evening of debauchery, but if you want a spaghetti dinner with me and the kid, Jason wouldn’t mind seeing you.”

“I’d like that.” Whizzer nods. Tugs him back in close. Pour Homme overwhelmed by the sharp and musky scent of exertion, there in the crook of his neck, where Marvin is tempted beyond all reason, to lick a single trickling drop of sweat, where it travels along the barely-there rise of a tendon. 

He smothers the impulse by pressing a kiss nearby, to marginally less-sweaty skin. Contemplates for neither the first nor the last time just what the last two lonely years have done to him, exactly, because he’s sure he was never interested in _tasting Whizzer’s sweat_ the first time around. He can remember licking him once in the shower, when getting clean turned dirty, it was a similar droplet-down-the-neck scenario, it was just water. He certainly always liked _making_ him sweat. Smells which were off-putting when stale in the wake of a good fuck were sometimes intoxicating _during_ , in the way that all things are intoxicating _during_ , at least with Whizzer, but this is… a little beyond, a little much.

“If we give up our remaining time on the court… we could go back to my place now.” He offers. “Really take some time… get in a nice _fuck_ and a nice shower, before I have to be responsible. Because if you wear me out with ten more minutes on this court, it’s going to be a handjob _in_ the shower and a _nap_.”

Whizzer laughs, grabs on tight and rocks him side to side, jostles him and squeezes at him, handsy and playful.

“I feel _great_ , I could go all afternoon.”

“Please tell me you mean sex and not racquetball.”

“Meet me Tuesday for another game and I’ll take you home and fuck you until you can’t take it anymore. An entire weekend’s worth of hot, screaming _sex_ all in one afternoon. Right this second, we’ll go. What do you say?”

“You drive a hard bargain.” He groans. 

“I drive a hard something else, too, if that helps you make up your mind.”

“Okay. Tuesday. But you’d _better_ be doing the driving, that’s all I have to say.”

“Until you can’t take anymore.” Whizzer promises, and Marvin has the sinking feeling he’s going to be saying yes to a lot of racquetball this time around, and who knows what else. No one ever warned him of the dangers of dating a strapping younger man, that sports would be involved…

It’s worth it, though. When Whizzer murmurs in his ear, when Whizzer holds him close, when Whizzer…

Touches him, light and easy, like reaching out is natural. Like it’s all right to reach for each other and not pull away. That’s new, the not pulling away. They used to, out of fear-- not just of the world, but of themselves. And… to punish, sometimes, perhaps, to withhold. Just not knowing what else to do with each other, with their feelings, with loving someone openly and freely and wholly. 

He wants to do better. Maybe this is what learning how looks like, for both of them. 

Whizzer cups his cheek and looks him over, and makes this face at him, like he’s _cute_ right now, all sweat and exhaustion. They give up the rest of their time, Whizzer drags him to some kind of little lounge area and makes him sit down, pushes a cold glass into his hand. And racquetball has been its own kind of hell, yes, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t like the atmosphere of Whizzer’s sports club. It’s… relaxed. There’s a pair of men in chairs near theirs, similarly attired and with long legs stretched in towards each other, in the middle of a public debate about whether it’s hopeless to try and impress each other’s parents. 

Racquetball… could be worth it. For Whizzer, who glows at getting him onto the court, and for this. To just be around their kind. The men who eye each other up appreciatively, the men who are paired off and don’t eye anyone else, the men who catch sight of them falling into their own little world and smile and nod in friendly understanding. The ease of it, existing here. 

“Who’s your friend?” One of the men asks, as Whizzer drops into Marvin’s lap, to play with his hair. It stays stuck up in wild directions when he does, he finds he doesn’t mind it.

“This is my new racquetball partner.” Whizzer grins, settling even more cozily against him. “This is Marvin. Marvin, Jackie.”

“I was wondering who you threw me over for.” Jackie laughs. He’s… young. Maybe Whizzer’s age, but maybe a little younger. Handsome, or perhaps it’s more accurate to say pretty. Like Whizzer, a pretty face, pretty dark eyes, but a lean athletic build, a chest just broad enough, dark curls of hair at the vee of his polo neck. The better looking of the duo, or maybe he just reminds Marvin of a crush he’d had when he was fresh out of university, the assistant to Marvin’s first _real_ boss who used to whisper pointers and offer the odd confidence-boosting wink which Marvin had not been ready to think very much about at the time.

Perhaps he’s always had a type. If he plotted out a chart of all the men who’ve really caught his attention, even in passing, they’re always a little like Whizzer in one way or another. And Whizzer is the whole package.

“Well, you never put out after a match, so I traded you in for someone who does.” Whizzer jokes, earning more laughter and a good deal of eye-rolling from the couple. “No, he’s my… lover?”

He hesitates over the word, looks to Marvin, his confidence wavering just for a flash. 

“I should hope so, I wouldn’t kill myself on that court for just anyone.” Marvin reaches up to touch Whizzer’s face, before leaning around him to shake hands with-- apparently-- his former racquetball partner, but _not_ a former lover. “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you. I don’t think I’ve ever been introduced to someone serious before...” He slides Whizzer a questioning look.

“Well… what can I say? Marvin brings the serious out in me. And I am sorry for cancelling on you last minute, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to get this guy out there. I just love to make him sweat. Anyway, you didn’t have much trouble replacing me. This the one you told me about?”

“This is him. My golden boy.” He beams proudly. Said golden boy has gone shy, is all pink in the face just to be noticed, when he’d been comfortable loudly discussing his personal life out in the middle of the lounge. It’s a paralyzing shyness which his lover doesn’t attempt to force him to overcome-- he pats his hand gently and doesn’t push proper introductions.

“You’re at the meet the parents stage?” Whizzer prompts, and also doesn’t push.

“Technically? I mean I know his parents, but they don’t know me, if you know what I mean.”

“Mom, dad, this is my _roommate_ , I mean you know how expensive good real estate is in the city!” Whizzer laughs. “Sure, sure. Makes me glad mine don’t talk to me and you don’t talk to yours, honey, we don’t have to explain our comings and goings. And comings. I mean, at least Jason likes me.”

“Jason loves you.” Marvin kisses Whizzer’s shoulder. “That’s all I need.”

“Mm, you better get me home with enough time before you have to pick the kid up. If this is my last chance at you before the weekend...”

“Sure thing.” He pats his thigh. “Let me up, let’s go. Again, nice meeting you-- also, if you ever need him back for racquetball, I promise my feelings will not be hurt--”

“Oh, no, you’re mine now. You promised me Tuesday.” Whizzer is quick to protest with a grin, sliding from Marvin’s lap only to pull him smoothly to his feet. 

“We’re good.” Jackie laughs, and leans forward to shake hands a second time. “We’re shaping up our game to impress the in-laws. His people speak racquetball. And he’s got plans to drag me to crash a family gathering at an _estate_ , so…”

“Ooh, have fun getting written out of the will.” Whizzer claps them both on the shoulder, before sliding an arm around Marvin’s waist. 

“We will!” The boyfriend says-- the first time he’s spoken to them, but he seems shocked into a laugh, into a little parting friendliness.

“Have fun with your new partner!” Jackie adds, rising and grabbing for his racquet, to take his golden boy down to the court they’d just vacated.

“I will!” He grins, squeezes Marvin-- gets a handful of love handle, which appropriately enough he does seem to love handling… 

They don’t bother with much more than a perfunctory wipe down, when they hit the locker room to change-- they’re just going to be getting sweaty all over again, and the kind of cleaning up Marvin needs to do, he’s not doing in a sports club locker room, no matter how understanding the clientele. Really, Marvin barely bothers, since he has clean clothes waiting at home and can sweat all over the ones he’s changing into, but Whizzer cleans up a little more. And then it’s home, where they strip right back out of everything they’d changed into-- where Whizzer hangs his clothes up while Marvin takes care now of the necessary hygiene. 

“I’m not kidding, babe, you’re doing everything here.” He groans, as he limps back towards the bed. “I hurt in places I didn’t know I had.”

“Aww, teddy bear…” Whizzer coos, Whizzer reaches out, Whizzer pulls him close… _Whizzer_ … “Lie down and let your baby make it all better. Face down, get comfy, I’ll take care of you.”

Marvin can hardly imagine refusing, he can’t imagine refusing Whizzer anything just now. He makes being taken care of sound so attractive… not to mention the idea of just flopping out on the bed and not moving while all the exhaustion and soreness in him is made better.

And make better Whizzer _does_ , strong hands kneading at Marvin’s shoulders, down each arm… Slowly, he starts grinding against Marvin’s ass as he works, but the massage doesn’t let up, the massage is nice. The grinding’s not bad, either… no, the grinding is also very nice. Though the massage may have more to do with the way Marvin is putty in Whizzer’s hands by the time he even grabs for the lube. 

“Marv?” Whizzer’s voice. The snap of the lube being opened. “You good?”

“Mm… I’m good. I’m wonderful.”

“Wonderful.” He echoes, and kisses the back of Marvin’s shoulder, and starts to get him slick and open.

“Love you, too.” The words slip out as Whizzer slips in.

“And I love you.” Whizzer growls, the growl is very nice, Whizzer gives him more. The more is nice, too. The more is… _swell_.

Marvin’s not a dead fish or anything, but he wouldn’t call what he does much work. His hips rock back to meet Whizzer, pace lazy and indulgent, and he lets the rest of him remain exhausted but well cared for. Lets Whizzer pull the deepest parts of him out to the light when he laces their fingers together, his palms broad and reassuring where they press to the backs of Marvin’s hands. When he kisses down the back of his neck, slow and wet, indecent and glorious, paying his full attention to each vertebra. When he rolls his hips just so and sends pleasure coursing down every nerve. When he whispers encouragement, each undeserved ‘you’re so good for me’, every welcome ‘let yourself go’... and is there a sweeter music than the way they fill the room at last, each grunt and moan and sigh in concert?

Whizzer brings him to the brink without pushing him over, twice, torturous. Sweet. Beneath him, his cock is trapped against the towel thrown down over his pillow, moves against it with every thrust, not quite _enough_ until suddenly it is, suddenly everything comes together. The friction against the pillow and the way Whizzer fills him, the way he slides against his prostate, the feel of their bodies everywhere that they touch, the desperate high moans in his ear, and then the kiss, hot and messy at this angle but _good_ …

“ _Fuck_.” Whizzer pulls out, flops over onto his back at Marvin’s side.

“Sure was.”

“That was intense.”

“Mm.” He turns to smile at him, reaches over to trail a light touch along his jaw. “You were… incredible.”

“Only for you.” He groans. “You’ll be the death of me.”

“I think that’s my line.”

“I usually pull out once I come-- I mean, I’ve never left someone wanting, but you know… there are plenty of ways to finish.” Whizzer’s head lolls into Marvin’s touch. “This time I just… didn’t.”

“Why didn’t you?” Marvin asks, letting his eyes trail over him. The glistening sweat, the deep pink still high on his heaving chest… his cock lying spent and softened but still flushed, still slightly swollen. Still a _sight_.

“Thought I could get you there before I lost it.” He says, a shrug in his voice that does not quite translate to physical motion. “Didn’t want to stop and change positions when you were close… noises you made. And how… how much you felt like _mine_. When you were beneath me like that. Was it ever that good?”

“It was always good. But… usually not _that_ good. Of course, the massage doesn’t hurt.” He chuckles. “That’s a big part of what’s got _me_ feeling so good. You take such good care of me, baby.”

His hand comes to rest over Whizzer’s heart, for a long, silent moment, before Whizzer clumsily covers it with his own with just a soft hum of contentment.

“Baby.” Marvin scoots in, to kiss his shoulder, bare skin warm and tacky with sweat beneath his lips this time. And… all right, so the sweat is a lot less appealing after the fact. There are some things even the blush of love can’t fully overcome. “You wanna hop in the shower?”

“No, now I’m the one who can’t move.”

He chuckles, levering himself up. “Okay, take your time. But I’ve got to shower before it gets too late. God, you’re something…”

He lets his hand trail down, caressing Whizzer’s stomach, giving his hip a brief squeeze. 

“Yeah? Love you, too.” Whizzer grins.

“Love you, too.” He leans down to kiss him, light, brief. To linger just a moment to be able to look into his eyes. Such beautiful eyes… the way they sparkle, the light in them, the way they’ve always captivated… “I’ll save some hot water for you.”

“Mm.” He strokes a hand down Marvin’s side. “Go clean up, hot stuff.”

One last little kiss, one last touch, one last look, a sigh… and Marvin leaves the bed and Whizzer, to get a very thorough but not too lengthy shower in. Whizzer is snoring, softly, when he emerges. He’s got his arms full of blanket, leg now thrown over Marvin’s pillow and the tangled up towel… quite the endearing picture. Moreso than he usually is, even.

Marvin brushes an errand lock of hair back from his face, gazes down at him just a moment. He’s beautiful… he’s always been beautiful, of course, but it’s somehow so different now. It’s as if a new light hits him, and there are things Marvin never used to notice. Or, yes, of course he noticed, but he… He doesn’t know. Suddenly the curve of a smile makes some part of him want to cry, suddenly he thinks so much more about the way his had fits around Whizzer’s hip, suddenly his heart is full to bursting with a million little things and he doesn’t know what to do with everything he feels. Everything he wants. Everything he knows.

He leaves Whizzer sleeping, as he dresses, as he goes to pick up Jason-- Jason and the Apple II, which he dutifully carries up to his room, the one room in the apartment with more than the barest signs of life. Colorful walls and colorful bedding, certain toys and books kept here, posters… He’s done an all right job of putting together a child’s bedroom that a child could be comfortable in, that his child can be comfortable in. And some weekends, Jason does still close himself off there, but… well, those weekends happen less, and all he can do when Jason needs space is try to take some solace in the idea that he feels safe enough in his room, that he has his needs met. That eventually the door will open and he’ll want something or need something from him. And that sometimes he shuts himself in with the computer, rather than shutting himself away from his father.

“All right, kiddo.” Marvin groans, spine popping a little as he straightens up after getting the computer plugged in. “Do you have homework this weekend?”

“A little. Math. It’s not due ‘til Monday, I have all weekend!”

“Not due ‘til Monday.” He chuckles, nodding. “Okay, well if you want to watch TV until dinner is ready, then I guess you can and we’ll work on math tomorrow before we go to the movies. Hey-- nothing inappropriate.”

“There’s nothing _inappropriate_ on TV at five.” Jason rolls his eyes. “Remember, I can stay up until after The Incredible Hulk!”

“I haven’t forgotten yet, have I?” He ruffles Jason’s hair. “Go on, dad’s making spaghetti, okay? We’re not eating in front of the TV.”

“Why can’t we?”

“Because. I would like to have some quality time to hear about your week. Is that too much to ask?”

“My week was _boring_.” Jason groans, plodding out to the living room.

“Okay, well, then I’ve got… I’ve got some news about my week that might not be boring--” He starts, not sure how to bring up the whole Whizzer thing. Jason loves Whizzer, at least, yes, but that doesn’t really tell him _how_ he should proceed.

“Okay, okay!” Jason calls back over his shoulder, goes to the trouble of throwing himself dramatically onto the sofa, but the sulk doesn’t last any longer than that, he’s quickly engrossed in something that looks far from engrossing. 

It’s not a great time for television, anyway-- he’s not sure what they’d be eating in front of if they did-- the news, it’s local crap and then the news on every channel… nothing’s really going to be worth watching, at least to Jason, until The Incredible Hulk comes on at eight. Well after they’ll be done with dinner. 

He asks, every once in a while, because it’s not allowed at home, and because for a while Marvin let him. The separation was new, he was barely clinging on to himself enough to be present, he’d be exhausted enough after cooking that he’d agree to eating on the couch, side by side, and so of course when he’d tried to reinstate some normalcy, there was pushback, but it had faded in time-- probably because being allowed to watch the news was not much of a prize.

He can hear the shower running, as he heads into the kitchen to start dinner, finds himself humming over the stove. Spaghetti bolognese, steamed broccoli-- which Jason will protest a little on principle, but which he does like-- and bread brushed with olive oil, garlic… not a bad meal on the whole. Compared to two years back, when it was… spaghetti, which might not be the right level of al dente-- more often than not, it wasn’t-- with sauce out of a jar and a green can of something that almost resembled parmesan, and no sufficient source of protein and no sufficient _vegetable_ , and the first time he made garlic bread, it was charcoal, inedible. Compared to that, tonight’s dinner feels like a roaring success. 

He gets the table laid. Water glasses, pitcher of ice water-- plastic pitcher, which is ugly, because he’d bought it for function alone, because it had suited his needs when he’d gone shopping for kitchen things and not known much of what he was doing and not imagined having discerning company-- wine glasses, juice for Jason, napkins… well, the napkins are paper, but he hadn’t taken any cloth napkins, and it’s stupid to suddenly feel so inadequate over napkins, which Trina got in the divorce, but…

But he used to expect Whizzer to do the cooking and he used to expect things to be a certain way and he’s never been good at making things nice for himself and he’s been marginally better at making things nicer for Jason, but it’s different. Jason doesn’t care about napkins or what the glasses are like or whether they use paper plates or real ones, the only thing that really matters is that the food he feeds Jason is reasonably good for him and that he gets enough of it, and of course the question of the dubious pleasure of eating in front of the television. And Whizzer…

Well, he’s going to see exactly how short of his own old standards Marvin falls, he guesses. And he will be… not impressed. 

He thinks he’ll be nice about it, tonight. After everything, after the past few days, he thinks Whizzer will be kind. But he’ll notice. He’ll know Marvin is not good at this. He’ll be nice about it, in front of Jason, and if he teases Marvin later, it won’t be with the intent to sting, they’re different now, they’re both working to be. 

But, he realizes, it’s not about whether or not Whizzer will say something to sting, to deflate. If he imagines Whizzer starting a fight about how he always demanded so much and can’t live up to his own standards, it hurts a little just to picture it. But if he imagines Whizzer being kind about it, it still hurts to know he’ll know. It’s not about what he says or doesn’t say to hurt Marvin, it’s about letting him down, or… just about knowing that he’s falling short, in someone’s eyes. It’s different, from being bad at pool and worse at racquetball-- Marvin hadn’t been the one to set the standard for either activity. He’d had demands about this once, and he’s no good at meeting them.

Well, sunny as the second chance has been so far, he was bound to disappoint eventually… and a disappointment doesn’t have to be the end of the world, does it? At least he’s trying to have _something_ , isn’t this better than how he’d _been_? Isn’t this better than seeing him any given Tuesday of two years ago standing over the sink in his underwear at nine at night with cold vegetable lasagna in hand? Anything’s better than that.

Well, a man can hope.

“Hey, kiddo, suppertime!” Marvin calls, moving into the living room. “TV off, c’mon. Spaghetti bolognese alla dad. Wash up. And--”

“Hey.” Whizzer’s voice, warm, from the hallway behind. “Jason!”

“Whizzer!” Jason leaps up, and Marvin goes to turn off the TV for him.

How could he not? Really, how could he not? Jason runs to throw his arms around Whizzer, and Whizzer lifts him up just briefly with a grunt, both of them laughing as he sets him back down. He loves the both of them so much it hurts.

“Okay, okay, you’re getting too big for that… how tall are you now? Another couple years growing like this and you’ll be as tall as your dad. How you doing, kiddo?”

“Good. Are you here for dinner?” He inserts himself under Whizzer’s arm, tucked up against his side.

“Yeah. That cool?”

“That’s cool. We’re having spaghetti.”

“Great!” He lets Jason lead him on into the dining room-- well, dining area, it’s… still also the kitchen. Whizzer lines up behind him to wash his hands before dinner at the kitchen sink.

And, at least the kitchen bears a few traces of life. Not just because it’s where food is cooked and consumed, but because held to the fridge-- by depressing magnets with phone numbers for pest control services and real estate agents and takeaway restaurants-- there are some of Jason’s school papers, a birthday card from him, a photograph… There’s the set of dishes, white with little green flowers around the borders, which at least have a little bit of personality to them. 

“Whizzer’s sitting next to me.” Jason insists, as Marvin comes in after them.

“ _Everyone’s_ sitting next to you, everyone’s sitting next to everyone.” He motions to the round table, the three chairs around it-- normally they only use two of the four chairs that had come with the set, and they leave the other two be, this time he’d moved the fourth chair out of the way. 

“Yeah, but Whizzer’s sitting next to me.”

“You can fight over me, I don’t mind.” Whizzer jokes, taking his seat. “Jason, how’s school, buddy?”

And, wonder of wonders, Jason tells him. While Marvin fills plates and glasses, Jason cheerfully goes over his week’s highlights. Friday nights are normally… a little more reticent, he opens slowly. But Whizzer has a knack for engaging him, pulling him out of his shell. It’s a talent Whizzer has in general, Marvin thinks-- or at least he knows how to charm his way around the men, or boys, of one family. One pair of awkward and rigid and lonely people, who need to be talked to in the right way, or who respond to… something. Well, he knows what _he_ responds to, but it’s more than that, it’s the way it feels safe to be near him, to open up to him. To take things long bottled-up and let them spill because he smiles and nods and listens. And he knows how to do that for Jason, too, how to be the kind of adult a kid like that needs… If Marvin didn’t love him before, he could love him for that alone. He could love him so much more for that.

“And I guess maybe I’m going to join chess club.” Jason finishes.

“What? That’s great!” Marvin leans over to squeeze his shoulder. “Do you like the other kids in the club?”

“Dunno yet. I don’t know how good they are.” He shrugs. “Mom said I need to do more _activities_. With other kids. And spend less time on the _computer._ ”

“How’s your mom doing?”

“Good, I guess.”

“Good, good. Okay, eat up. Broccoli, too.”

Predictably, Jason makes a face at being told vegetables are not something he may opt out of, and predictably, he doesn’t seem to dislike it once he’s eating it. Marvin finds himself struck by a memory he’d thought forgotten, convincing little Jason he liked broccoli because he could pretend to be an enormous, tree-eating monster. Trina had complained about the monster noises at the dinner table, but the complaints had softened considerably once she’d seen their son finish his vegetables. For a couple of years, of course, they’d had a hell of a time getting any vegetable into him that wasn’t broccoli or baby corn, but… he doesn’t know. Jason had been loud and messy, had forgone the use of a fork and wrapped his plump and tiny little hand around big pieces of broccoli, florets spraying from his mouth on every roar, and Marvin had been enamored with fatherhood… 

Maybe, in part, because it was not then his job to clean up after him. But… he’s glad he remembers the moment now, the odd happiness in it. 

“Hey.” Whizzer’s voice is soft, his foot tapping against Marvin’s under the table. “Dinner’s good, thanks. For having me.”

“Oh-- thank you.” He smiles. “It’s nothing fancy…”

“Please, do you know how many nights a week I was eating TV dinners, before-- actually, also… lately? I’m not fancy. Not really.”

“In front of the TV?” Jason asks.

“There’s never anything good on between One Day at a Time and… actually, I don’t even know the last time I paid attention to something on TV at night, except MASH on Mondays, what’s good on the weekends?”

“The Incredible Hulk’s on tonight. And then there’s a late, late movie and I’m never allowed up for that.”

“The Incredible Hulk it is.” Whizzer raises his wine glass in a toast. “What do I need to know about The Incredible Hulk?”

“It’s about a man whose anger issues get him run out of every town he goes to, what’s to know?”

“ _Dad_.” Jason rolls his eyes. “He’s a scientist and he’s super smart and there’s a giant _lab accident_ and now he’s gamma _irradiated_ and when he gets angry is when he becomes _the incredible Hulk_ and then he helps people sometimes-- he always wants to just help people, only he also smashes everything up a lot when he’s angry, he tries not to get angry but he does every time and then he smashes stuff, but the bad guys think he’s, like… a _monster_ now, even though he’s a good guy and he’s looking for a cure, so he has to run away after every time he becomes the Hulk! So he can’t ever make friends or stay in one place or have a family.”

“So when he’s not angry, he’s sad.”

“Marvin, _please_ , Jason is trying to tell me about my new favorite television program.” Whizzer says, with a shake of the head, with a _look_ that he thinks is meant to make him laugh, except he’s suddenly so damn _fond_ of him… 

“I think he’s prepared you pretty well for what the show is.”

“And hey.” Another little tap. “I thought you were going to wake me.”

“I would have if I didn’t hear you already in the shower when I started dinner.” Marvin shrugs. 

“I thought you were going to wake me before you picked Jason up.” He clarifies, and between that and the memory of seeing him asleep in the bed, there’s a happiness Marvin can’t contain, a smile so soft and so total that he has to look down at his plate instead of over to Whizzer.

“You looked like you needed the rest." He says. Only looks up again when he feels Whizzer’s hand over his own, a brief touch. 

“Why?” Jason asks, and Marvin’s entire life flashes before his eyes.

“Racquetball.” Whizzer lies without hesitation. “Wore myself out showing off.”

Jason regards him skeptically a moment, leans back from the table and folds his arms. “And you took a nap in my dad’s bed?”

“Yeah.” Whizzer says, more smoothly than Marvin might have, which is not the same as actually sounding smooth.

“Does that mean you’re his boyfriend again?”

Marvin watches the way the smile takes Whizzer’s face, slow and hesitant and then all at once and glowing.

“Yeah, I guess I am.”

“For good this time?”

“I hope so.” He shrugs. “I mean, it’s… no one can see the future, and it’s kind of a complicated thing, but… I’d like to be.”

“I’d like you to be.” Marvin adds softly. He reaches over, takes Whizzer’s hand again-- again, only briefly. 

Jason nods and returns to his spaghetti, mollified. Conversation is sporadic, between bites-- more about school, about what life is like at home with Trina and Mendel, about girls Jason won’t quite say he likes, exactly. About what the weekend might hold.

“Are you going to stay the night?” Jason asks, as he’s clearing his plate of a second helping. 

“Oh-- uh… well, I guess we hadn’t really planned that far…” Whizzer glances over to Marvin, who shrugs, smiles back at him.

“You could come with us tomorrow, to the movies. If you wanted. _If_ you don’t spend the whole movie making out with my dad.”

“Would I do that?”

“ _Yes_. It’s so gross. But, I mean… it’s gross when Mendel makes out with mom, too, it’s not just gross because you’re a guy.”

“Yeah, well… you’re not going to think making out is gross forever. But okay.” Whizzer does his best not to laugh. “I promise not to spend the whole movie making out with your dad. I didn’t bring a change of clothes over… but I could meet you there. What’s the movie?”

“It’s something Disney. I mean, you know, not a cartoon, but something Disney. It’s got Elliott Gould.” Marvin says. It was the only thing he could find times for that seemed at all appropriate for Jason, except for a theater showing something old they’d already gone to. It’s felt like a year for sex romps and slasher flicks and not much family friendly fare, if you didn’t feel like going to the same movie twice. Though he supposes the year’s still young.

“Elliott Gould…” Whizzer sighs-- and it is the sort of sigh that sparks an unreasonable flare of jealousy. “Did you see The Long Goodbye?”

“I don’t know, I don’t remember.”

“He was Phillip Marlowe. It was good.” Whizzer’s foot migrates up towards Marvin’s ankle. “Are you pouting because I think Elliott Gould is attractive?”

“No, that would be silly. Jason, can you get the leftovers put away and the table cleared so I can do the dishes?”

Jason knows better than to argue clearing the table, when it means not having to do the dishes-- and really, he’s usually good about chores, about getting them done right quickly so that they’re behind him. At least, the few chores that Marvin gives him, he does with little complaint. He could maybe expect him to do more, at his age, but he only has him on the weekends… it makes it hard. Two days out of every seven, where he doesn’t want to be the bad guy to a son he’s let down enough in the past, where he doesn’t want to fill up his downtime with work just to teach him the value of work, where he doesn’t…

He doesn’t know. 

He doesn’t mind doing the dishes, anyway. He had always imagined he would hate doing them, and so he’d never done them if he could help it-- he’d resented doing them when he was young, between dorm life and marriage, but it’s actually calming, to have that time with the sound of the water in the sink, with seeing something start dirty and come clean…

“I’ll dry.” Whizzer volunteers, getting to his feet.

“I usually just put everything in the rack to drip… but maybe the glasses? You could--?”

“Anything you want.” He says, half-watches Jason finish getting things put away and cleared-- they both watch as Jason, chore complete, makes a run for the living room and the TV. Kitchen to themselves, Whizzer steps in close, his hands moving to Marvin’s shoulders. “I like this side of you.”

“The side of me that does the dishes?”

“Yeah. I don’t know. The… homemaker. It suits you.”

“Maybe only on weekends.” Marvin warns him, his own hands coming to rest at Whizzer’s waist. “I just… Jason needs-- he deserves, to be taken care of. I’m not going to spend all weekend feeding my kid junk, I’m not going to let the place be a mess. I… I get him for two days, out of every week. I see my son two days out of every week. And it’s never going to be more than that if I don’t make those two days really good days.”

“You’re a good dad.”

“I’m not.”

“Marv.” He squeezes his shoulders, then kneads gently at them. “You _are_. Maybe you weren’t, always. Hell, I know yours wasn’t much better than mine. You’re working without a playbook, but you’re working.”

“I just want to do better.”

“Yeah.” Whizzer kisses the side of his head. “I can see the change in you.”

“I’ve gotta wash the dishes.” Marvin sniffs, and Whizzer lets him pull away to the sink. He grabs a dishtowel, and stands by, and so Marvin starts with the wine glasses and the silverware, and directs him to where they go once dry. 

“Still need me?”

“Always. Not for this.” Marvin leans up to kiss his cheek. “Go on, get in there, before The Incredible Hulk starts up. I’ll be in in a minute.”

“Okay.” Whizzer gives his ass a pat-- a very brief squeeze-- and heads into the living room.

When Marvin finishes the dishes and joins them, Jason is in the center of the couch, leaning into Whizzer’s side, and Whizzer’s arm is stretched across the back, and it’s easy to drop down and join them, to lean back and feel Whizzer knead at the back of his neck. Marvin makes popcorn midway through during a commercial break, dumps it in the big blue plastic bowl. It winds up in Jason’s control.

Whizzer tilts his head back, tosses and catches pieces of popcorn, and Marvin thinks about their second first date, croutons launched from across the table, thinks about asking Whizzer to toss him one, instead of just eating popcorn normally, but he’d be dust buster-ing it out of the sofa cushions if they tried, probably… Still, there’s something about the thought. There’s something about everything, in this moment. There’s something about the way Jason sometimes leans into Whizzer and sometimes leans into him, when he’s not simply leaning forward over the bowl of popcorn, eyes fixed on the screen, and something about Whizzer’s hand rubbing the back of his neck, and something about Jason allowing him to reach out and ruffle his hair now and then, and something about the three of them sitting together like this and watching TV together, the family Marvin has always wanted.

“Okay, kiddo.” He says, when the credits have finished rolling. “Get ready for bed. Tomorrow’s the movies.”

“With Whizzer?”

“With Whizzer.” Whizzer promises.

“Don’t leave without saying goodnight.”

“Scout’s honor.” He nods, smiling as Jason takes off for the hall bathroom. He turns back to Marvin, leans in to kiss the end of his nose. “You want me to stay tonight? I can run home once the kid’s in bed and pack a couple things, come back. Or I can meet you guys at the theater tomorrow.”

“I want you.” He runs a hand over Whizzer’s chest. “Bring a couple day’s worth of clothes if you want, spend the weekend.”

“I don’t want to cut into your Jason time…”

“You’re not. You’re… I don’t think I can really describe, what it means to me that you love him. I know there are men out there I might have met who would have wanted me to run off and forget that I was a father. Or who would… try, in a kind of half-assed way, but who wouldn’t… _connect_ to him. You don’t have a playbook, either, and you don’t have to try, but here you are. Trying. And it’s... attractive. I don’t have a better word for it than that. I don’t think there’s a word that says enough.”

“Okay, then. Well… if _he_ wants me to stick around, I mean…”

“Obviously he does.”

“Uh-huh.” Whizzer grins, and that grin is deadly. Marvin’s never built any defenses against it. Whizzer leans in, and Marvin’s got no defense against that, either. There’s nothing for it but to let himself be kissed, sweet and slow. One hand buried in his hair and the other at his hip, the two of them rediscovering how to best fit to each other on the sofa.

It’s not really ‘making out’, not in that adolescent sense, there’s not any kind of fire lit under it, it’s only… It’s comfortable, and it’s sweet, and he misses being able to reach out for this man, misses touching his chest, his side, his face. The slide of their mouths. It used to be something frantically sexual, making out on the couch-- first it was illicit and then it was passion, or some flawed attempt at it-- and now it’s just allowed to _be_ , sweet.

“ _Gross_.” Jason announces. 

“Sorry, kiddo, after nine at night, dad gets to kiss his boyfriend.” Marvin says, but he pulls back just the same. “You ready for bed? C’mere.”

Jason submits with good graces to the mortifying ordeal of having a parent who loves him, to being hugged goodnight and to having his forehead kissed, to being wished sweet dreams and told he’s loved. More than what Marvin used to do in a night, but then, now he has to squeeze an entire week into two days. Now he understands so much more about fatherhood than he ever did, and now he can’t always be there to be one.

And then, Jason drags Whizzer to see his room-- not, he makes it very clear, to be tucked in, like a baby, just to show him his room if he hasn’t seen it, and to say goodnight.

“I haven’t seen it. Is it cool?” Whizzer grins, gets to his feet and lets himself be dragged. 

Marvin gives them a moment, can hear the exclamations over whatever different things Jason shows off, before going to lean against the wall beside Jason’s door, with a smile on his face that he can’t seem to shake.

“You’re really going to stay, for good?” Marvin hears Jason ask, which is more eavesdroppy than intended, but then, he doesn’t suppose he’s an especially good person, because he stays to listen.

“That’s my intention.”

“Because my dad really likes you. And he doesn’t really like anyone else. Or maybe he doesn’t know anyone else who’s gay, because he didn’t have any other boyfriends, when you went away.”

Well. That would be… mortifying, if he hadn’t told Whizzer as much himself already.

“I really like him, too. And I don’t really like anyone else.” Whizzer says, with that smile in his voice. “And I know a lot of other guys who are gay… but I don’t like them as much as I like your dad. Besides… I wouldn’t get to hang out with you. And… I don’t have kids, and I-- couldn’t have kids. And it’s kind of cool to hang out with a kid, and like… I don’t know. Teach you about baseball. Watch TV. Go out to the park or the movies or to get ice cream or… I don’t know. Just… get to feel like the kind of responsible adult who can… be there.”

“Like a step-dad?”

“Well-- Maybe. I guess I don’t know-- Maybe, like one.”

“I’m glad you’re back.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

“Hey, Whizzer? Can I ask you something?” Jason asks, and it’s with a confidential kind of trepidation that has Marvin moving away from the door. He’s done more than enough listening in.

Marvin moves to turn the TV off, to put the radio on, to tidy up what little there is to tidy. Putters around the mostly-empty living room until Whizzer emerges.

“Hey.” He comes to wrap his arms around Marvin’s waist, chin on his shoulder. “I’ve got to go pack a bag, you gonna wait up for me?”

“Yeah. How’s Jason? He need anything?”

“Nah. Just… a little reassurance. About life, and about… me, sticking around. Stuff. He’s a good kid. And he’s doing great-- and you’re doing a great job with him.” He kisses the back of Marvin’s neck, and Marvin grabs his arm before he can let go and pull away.

“Hey… thanks.”

“For what?”

“For talking to him-- for being good at talking to him. I mean… you know. I try. And we’ve got chess. The kid’s biggest heroes are Tigran Petrosian and the Incredible Hulk, and I-- I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Are you kidding?” Whizzer laughs. “Wait, I’m just guessing, but Tigran Petrosian is a chess guy, right? Right.”

He turns Marvin around to face him, taps his forehead.

“Yes. What?”

“ _You_. You’re Tigran Petrosian and the Incredible Hulk, rolled up into one. Yes, your relationship with Jason is hard, he’s twelve and a half, that’s the way of the world. He’s going to pull away and he’s going to tantrum and he’s going to not want to tell you about his life all the time and things are fucking _hard_. But did you-- like, were you listening, at all? To that rundown he gave me of his show?”

“I watch the show with him every week, no, I know what the show’s about--”

“About a guy who’s angry, who tries so hard not to be, because he’s still a good guy, even if no one understands, and he doesn’t get to stay in his home because of it, but he’s trying to fix it, does that sound like someone in Jason’s life?”

“I’m not a good guy, when I’m angry.” He pulls back, turns away, tries not to _think_ about the long list of mistakes that brought him… well, here, ultimately, but before that, to the two year slog to get to be this okay.

“But this is how he… puts it together, this gives him a way of looking at what went wrong and… separating things out, and forgiving you because now he can understand the way it’s a struggle, because he’s got a story about someone going through a cartoon version of emotional issues. Do you get that? He sees you in this. He loves you. And he misses you during the week and he worries about you. Beat yourself up a little less.”

“I don’t want my son to worry about me.”

“Then try real hard to accept that two years of making amends counts for something, and that if the people in your life can forgive you for what you’ve done, you can forgive yourself.” Whizzer leans up, directs him down so that he can kiss his forehead. “And wait up for me so I’m not spending the night out in the hall, I’m going to go get my stuff. For the weekend. You, me, and Jason.”

“I love you, too.” Marvin nods, squeezing him tight once. “I’ll wait up.”

"Love you." Whizzer pulls away, heading for the door. "I think you're way cuter than Elliott Gould."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I look up the television schedule for the spring of 1981 to try and determine what Jason would most likely watch on a Friday night? Yes. And it turned out way better than I could have expected.


	7. We Know How to Show It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just barely managed to get this up on May 27th, y'all.
> 
> Marvin spends a pleasant family Saturday with Jason and Whizzer.

“You were fragile.” Whizzer says, his gaze fixed on Marvin’s hand, where it rests in his own. 

“When was this?”

They’ve been lying in bed, drifting towards sleep. The room is never fully dark because Marvin’s never bought curtains good enough to keep it that way, nor has he bothered to fix the busted blinds that might have done more, but it’s a comfortable level, or it seems that way when the little light that comes through lets him see Whizzer, sharing his bed.

“When we were together. The first time. Maybe always. I just mean… I saw it. On good days, it made me want to make the world easier on you. Make being with me easier.”

“Bad days?” Marvin prompts, because he can hear it in Whizzer’s voice, the desire to come clean on something, to atone.

“You have to understand, before you came into my life, the kinds of guys-- You have to understand, before you, no one ever… I wasn’t the boy you cared about, let’s just put it that way.”

“Let’s not.” He frowns.

“I don’t want to dress my past up pretty, Marvin. I knew the score then and I was okay with it. Sex was… transactional. Sometimes it meant a guy paying for things, sometimes it just meant a good time for a good time, but it was never love. I never asked for it to be. I didn’t know how to want it, until I-- Hell, until I thought it was too late. And most of my life, the guys who’d pick me up had all the power. I mean, sure, I had the power to walk away if I wanted. If they didn’t work to keep me sweet, if the sex was bad--”

“You said it was bad with me.”

“No, I said you were too drunk to be good at it. It was still-- it wasn’t bad. And I shouldn’t have said it like I did, if that’s your takeaway. I mean you were a mess that night but it was still-- I had a real good time, with you. You hooked me.” Whizzer smiles at him, charm turned on high, and he kisses his hand. “Look I’m trying to say something real to you.”

“Sorry, continue.”

“If I walked away from anyone else, it didn’t mean anything. It… If I took my love away, it wouldn’t hurt. And… one day, I realized I had the power to hurt you. And I didn’t know how to ask if that meant you loved me, and I didn’t know how to say I thought it was possible I loved you. I don’t like that I was that person… but I’m not him anymore. If we have bad days, Marvin, I won’t be him again.”

Marvin slides an arm around Whizzer, pulls him into a kiss that tastes like mouthwash.

“We’ll have bad days. Everyone does. But I’m not going to be the man I used to be, either, so… Thank you.”

“I should have protected you.” Whizzer’s free hand strokes his chest, the other squeezes his own. “I will protect you.”

“I know you will, baby, I know you will. And I… was cruel. And I knew I was-- that sometimes, things I said, they were designed to hurt. So I can’t exactly… I don’t have the moral high ground here. But… I love you. And I want to be different. Any reason why we’re having this conversation tonight?”

“Dunno. Because I think it’s a conversation we’re going to keep having, for a while.” He tucks his face in against Marvin’s neck, kisses him there. “Because I don’t think I’ve been getting through to you about how we both made mistakes, every time you get caught up in how you were. And because I really do think you’re cuter than Elliott Gould.”

“Is that it?”

“Well I don’t want you to spend the whole movie sulking, thinking I’ve got a crush. Hey, here, roll over. No-- no, roll over, other way, I wanna spoon.”

Marvin does, a little surprised. Normally, Whizzer makes himself comfortable half on top of him, or they face each other for a cuddle before finding a more sleep-friendly position, and once or twice he guesses he’s been the big spoon, but this…

This is nice. 

It feels right, more right than the couple of times they’ve gone the other direction, and he’s not sure how much of that is a simple matter of Whizzer’s height making it more comfortable, and how much is his own desire to be held by someone, how often he’s longed to be held and not been. Or been held _wrong_ , but even that’s been relatively rare in his life compared to not being held at all. 

Not that he doesn’t love a more mutual cuddle. With Whizzer, he does. Not that he doesn’t love holding someone he cares for in his arms, he loves that, too. But this is… 

Freedom, from expectation. From pressure. All he needs to do, to be exactly what Whizzer wants of him in this moment, is to lie here and let himself be held. Let Whizzer’s body be solid and safe at his back, let Whizzer’s strong arms wrap around him, let Whizzer’s hand spread over his chest, warm… Just, to let Whizzer hold him.

“Mm, that’s what I like.” Whizzer sighs, and kisses the back of his neck, and nuzzles up into his hair. “Got my teddy bear.”

“Always.”

“I love how you smell, is that weird? I’m crazy about it. Like… when you go to bed in a clean tee shirt? And you wash your face before bed and you just smell like… soap and cotton. Boring, normal smells. So how come I can’t get enough?”

“Beats me, you should see how my head whips around if a guy passes by wearing Pour Homme.”

“Yeah, but… I mean, that’s on purpose.” Whizzer chuckles, kisses his neck again. “You get a little bit of a pass, that’s on purpose. But _you_ … mm, just wanna eat you up.”

“Down, boy. Get some sleep. I have to wake up when Jason does, I’ve got french toast to make in the morning.”

“What happened to scrambled eggs and canned soup?” He laughs, snuggles closer still, nuzzles at a shoulder. “I want french toast. Get your sleep, honey, get all the sleep you want. Just… let me have my teddy bear while you do.”

“He’s all yours.” Marvin promises, and lets sleep take him.

Of course they don’t wake up the way they fell asleep, they never did. He wakes up half under Whizzer, Whizzer’s arm slung low across his hips. Morning wood resting against that forearm, and Whizzer shifts against his shoulder, hides his face from the morning. 

It’s Saturday, Marvin rises when he always does, and Jason sleeps in. Which usually means a shower and a leisurely cup of coffee over the morning paper before making breakfast, but this week… this week there’s Whizzer. And mornings with Whizzer are sweet…

“Are you up?” Marvin asks, his fingers playing through Whizzer’s hair. 

“Mm, _somebody_ is.” Whizzer says, a sleepy chuckle and a kiss to Marvin’s shoulder. “You need a little lovin’, honey, before you make that french toast?”

“It is underwhelming french toast.” He admits. “Just so you don’t get your hopes up too high.”

“You want a little lovin’ anyway?”

He hums, considering. “A _little_. But we’ve gotta keep the noise down.”

“Underwhelming lovin’, then.”

“You could never.” He smiles, and cups Whizzer’s cheek, reaches after him as he moves down the bed. Strokes his face gently even as he begins. 

Whizzer holds back on a few of his more devastating moves, but he doesn’t underwhelm. 

As for returning the favor… well, nothing could be further from underwhelming. 

“I missed this, you know.” Marvin says, from between Whizzer’s thighs. Strokes just one finger up the underside of his cock, lays a very wet kiss to the head. 

“And here I thought you missed all of me.”

“Doing this, I mean.” Wraps his hand around him, another kiss, a lick. “For you.”

He’d gotten better at it, over the course of their relationship, made great strides from his first eager, unversed blowjob. He still kind of likes it sloppy, likes the feel of the spit running down his chin, and the way Whizzer sometimes used to tug him off, how he’d revel in making more of a mess of him. Run his thumb along Marvin’s lip and just take him in, smear precome across his cheek, the way he’d tease and make it sound so sweet. Marvin couldn’t have imagined the affection that used to come across in the way Whizzer would call him messy.

He hadn’t known how to take it, but sometimes it was still good, still sweet. Sometimes the bliss outshone the shame and the confusion and they were just _right_ together, sometimes he could let himself have a good thing.

“Yeah, I seem to remember that about you…” Whizzer says, and when Marvin pulls away to admire him, he places a knuckle under his chin. “You like to give as much as you like to get.”

“Well, can you blame me?” Marvin looks between Whizzer’s eyes to his cock and back, bobs his eyebrows. Grins when he makes him laugh. “You’re gorgeous.”

“Mm, flatterer.”

“I can’t help it if your cock is perfect, Whizzer. I didn’t ask for this.” He swirls his tongue around the head. “You’ve ruined me for other men.”

“Should I be sorry?”

“No.”

There’s a tenderness that he thinks the old Marvin would have run from, that passes between them at that. He can feel the part of him that’s still wary of displaying open emotion-- though at least the impulse is to hide behind humor and not anger, now. It is a conscious decision, not to hide it. To let Whizzer see it in his eyes, to lay a very heartfelt kiss to him before getting on with things. He doesn’t have _all_ morning, as much as he loves the foreplay, as much as he loves taking it slow when he’s going down on Whizzer. 

He likes to take his time, and Whizzer likes him to, usually. Of all the faults which can’t be said to be as much Marvin’s as Whizzer’s, impatience wasn’t one. At least not in bed. He was never rushed and never greedy… he would call himself a selfish lover, but he never was one. Not with Marvin. Oh, sometimes they were wild, they were often wild, but there was never any ‘get to the _point_ , Marvin’, never any rush to the finish line. He encouraged all the teasing Marvin could dish out. Would play with his hair or rub his shoulders and let him know he was on the right track. He was usually on the right track. The chemistry was good between them and they were crazy for each other…

He’s still crazy.

“Remember… mm, remember-- shit, Marv, yeah, just like that-- that one time… we were at my old place, I burned dinner because you had to have it so bad?”

He hums an affirmative, though to be fair, Whizzer burned dinner sometimes even if Marvin wasn’t dragging him off for a quickie, back then. He’d improved, over time. Somewhat. Marvin had been more forgiving, before the disastrous experiment with living all under one roof-- often because a burned dinner when alone with Whizzer either meant they’d been having sex when it burned, or it meant a very, very quick blowjob while waiting on pizza. Which Marvin could just _eat_ , at the time, late at night even, without worrying about heartburn.

But he knows which time Whizzer means, because he’d been… he’d been more than usually demanding, had backed Whizzer up against the fridge and dropped to his knees-- which did not thank him for choosing the kitchen and not the plush flokati rug in the bedroom-- and he’d begged without an ounce of shame to suck him off, and Whizzer always did love to be begged. Marvin never minded if it was theatrical, it didn’t rob him of any dignity so long as it was over the top, which was how they both wanted it anyway. 

He never made Whizzer beg, but he’d been crazy for any kind of attention. Whizzer could always make him melt with a touch. Whizzer could always destroy him with a kiss. 

Whizzer had, on the night he’s remembering, slapped him across the face with his dick, which Marvin had begged him to do, in amongst all the other things he had begged for, and talked dirty to him, and he’d come in his pants like a teenager just about the second Whizzer got a hand on him, and then Whizzer had said ‘oh, shit’, and Marvin had thought he was referring to the performance, but then he’d smelled the smoke.

And then the smoke detector had gone off, which they’d bitched about, but they’d showered fast waiting for delivery and had a second round and Whizzer had talked him into spending the night. He’d gone home in the morning with his underwear in his pocket, buried his clothes halfway down in the laundry hamper.

They hop in the shower together after he finishes Whizzer off-- the shower, where Whizzer washes Marvin’s face and looks at him with almost unbearable care. 

When Jason emerges from his room, Marvin and Whizzer are standing over the stove together, mugs of coffee in hand, collaborating on breakfast-- which is to say, Marvin is making french toast and Whizzer is making suggestions.

“If you think you can do better--” He starts, trying not to laugh.

“Oh, I know I can’t do better.” Whizzer grins, leans in and then catches sight of Jason. “Morning, Jason.”

“Morning, kiddo.” Marvin turns. “You sleep okay?”

“Yeah.”

“C’mere, give your old man a hug.”

“Dad, I’m not a little kid--”

“Are you too old to hug your father? What? C’mon, you want powdered sugar or syrup?”

“There are hugs now?” Whizzer opens his arms. “Do I get in on this?”

Jason slings an arm around each of them, lets himself be nestled into the middle of a three-man hug and relaxes when Whizzer does the same and squeezes father and son alike tight. 

“Morning.” Jason says, muffled. 

Marvin kisses the top of his head, before letting go, ruffling his hair and kissing Whizzer’s cheek, and turning back to the stove. 

“Someone wanna grab me three plates and I’ll start serving breakfast?” He asks, and Jason grabs the plates from the drying rack, takes his plate once it’s filled. “You’re welcome.”

“Thanks, dad!”

“You know, next weekend…” Whizzer lines up to grab the next plate, leaning one hip against the counter as he waits on the french toast. “I could get a loaf of real bread, slice it and leave it out overnight, and then I think your french toast would turn out a little… frencher.”

“Yeah, next weekend?” Marvin smiles over at him. “What do you think, Jason?”

“I think neither of you is a very good cook.” He says, as if he’s breaking the news as gently as possible, and Whizzer laughs. “But I think we should try. And I think Whizzer should come over.”

“Well okay. And maybe we’ll get better at cooking.”

“Sure.” Whizzer reaches over, tugging at the lapel of Marvin’s bathrobe. “Together? Then you can wash and I can dry?”

“Yeah. At least the glasses and the silverware. And you can help Jason with sports-- a thing at which I am not great, to say the least.”

Whizzer kisses him. “Man enough to admit it!”

Jason would have Whizzer to help him with little league, and Marvin to help him with math, and Trina to help him with history, and Mendel to help him with English, and all of them to do things like cooking his meals and doing his laundry and general life advice and… and they would _work_. Split, yes, under two roofs, but working together.

“What do you know about pitching?” Jason asks, his mouth full.

“What do I know about pitching? You got plans tomorrow? I’ll show you.” He grins. 

Tossing a ball back and forth was one of those father-son activities which it had quickly become apparent was _not_ in Marvin’s wheelhouse. It had been easy, when Jason was little, with soft baby toy balls to be rolled across the floor or gently lobbed, and Marvin had _tried_ , only very briefly, when he’d gotten a bit older, when he’d displayed some interest in games of catch. It wasn’t just ineptitude, it was timidity, the fear of hitting him with the ball if he aimed it wrong and the knowledge that he would aim it wrong, he’s not sporty, he never has been.

He’d been a disappointment, he supposes. He could never adequately make himself care about things… he’d thought it was enough that they had chess, enough that he bought tickets to games he couldn’t follow, sat through them, cheered at little league, but… 

Maybe it will be enough, if Whizzer’s also here, if Whizzer can understand the parts Marvin doesn’t. Maybe it’s enough to cheer for his son when he doesn’t understand the game, because someone else can help him with the fundamentals, someone else can understand the things he wants to say about it, and maybe it’s okay if Marvin is just… there, doing his best to be a good sport, when he’s always hated sports.

Well, he’s let Whizzer drag him into actually playing racquetball, so anything’s possible.

After the movie, they go out for lunch, where Whizzer occasionally nudges at his foot under the table, where Whizzer sends him little smiles over greasy diner burgers, and where Whizzer also displays an endless patience for Jason’s dissection of the movie. And back at home, Marvin sits with Jason until his homework is done, gives him permission to play on the computer until dinner, which he suspects is too permissive, but he can’t think of a good reason to give him that he wouldn’t call bullshit on if he was the kid and not the parent. Some weeks he plans out a little more fully, but he figures the kid needs some downtime, and sometimes when he has permission to shut himself up with the computer, he emerges in search of company after an hour or so.

“Dance with me.” Whizzer demands, putting the radio on. 

“I haven’t gotten any better at it.”

“Yeah, but there are three or four things I’m not going to ask you for in the middle of the afternoon on a Saturday.” He motions for Marvin to give him his hand.

“Good point. Four things?”

“Yeah. What, you can’t think of four things?”

Marvin guesses he can. Technically, he guesses he can think of more than four, but some of them he can do with his clothes on. But dancing is safe, and dancing is nice, and he’s never gotten _good_ at it, he dances like a middle-aged white dad, which he guesses he is, or close enough. He does a little better, when he figures out how to let Whizzer lead. 

They still take turns, because it’s not just easy. He wants to be better, but it’s all piled up, and he doesn’t want ‘better’ to just be… what? That he takes on all the things he didn’t do before, that he expected Whizzer to? All the ‘girl’ things? Which he’s aware is its own problem in his way of thinking, which he never used to examine. 

He _likes_ getting fucked, though he imagines at some point the novelty will wear off enough that they’ll go both ways with it, because the sex was certainly always good before. Does he like doing the cooking? He likes doing the dishes, as chores go, but the cooking? Well. He doesn’t think his cooking is any worse than Whizzer’s, which matters more than whether or not he enjoys doing it. He enjoys eating real food, he likes knowing Jason is eating reasonably well with him. He thinks he might like cooking together, he thinks they might do better if they could focus on their individual strengths with it. But he likes leading, when they dance, even though he’s objectively worse at it. And he likes paying for things, even though he knows he wants to be loved for more than that.

“You’re cute, did you know that?” Whizzer asks, as they sway to something slow enough, no one really leading and no one really following-- which feels easy, which feels right. 

“I’m not so sure that’s right.”

“You want convincing?” He leans in close. He smells like Marvin’s shampoo, Marvin’s aftershave, no familiar whiff of Pour Homme, but Marvin likes that, too… that Whizzer is in his home and using his things and _staying_. “You’ve got a smile on you… you could charm a bird down from the trees.”

“Uh-huh. What am I going to do with this charmed bird?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never thought about that part. You’ve got those blue eyes. That sweet tuchus. And I think you nose is cute.”

“I think _your_ nose is cute.” Marvin smiles, can’t stop smiling, aches from smiling so much.

“Good, then we’re both cute.” He rubs their noses together. “That works out.”

“Let’s not pretend we’re the same level of cute, here. My boyfriend is a lot cuter than yours.”

“Mm, no, nope. I’m afraid not, Marvin, I know you like to get the last word, but I can’t let you win this one.”

“Let me win? Oh, you don’t have to ‘let’ me win when I’m _right_. My boyfriend is, hands down, cuter than yours or anybody’s.”

“Sorry, honey, you’re absolutely wrong, you’re wrong, you just are. What’s cuter than a teddy bear? _My_ teddy bear.” Whizzer squeezes at his love handles, tugging him in even closer, the two of them pressed tight to each other, nice and cozy.

“I can name exactly one thing which is definitively cuter than that, mister, and I’m looking right at him.”

“Are you guys going to kiss?” Jason asks, with youthful disapproval. 

“I was planning on it.” Whizzer says, but he puts a little more distance between his face and Marvin’s. “What’s up?”

“Nothing, I’m just bored.”

“Well, what do you want to do?”

“Chess.” He shrugs. “If you wanna play.”

“Set up the board.” Marvin smiles, giving Whizzer’s hip a pat before detaching from him. “We’ve got time for a game before I have to make dinner.”

Jason sets the board up on the coffee table, and pulls a chair around, even gets the timer out, and Whizzer lounges next to Marvin to watch them play. 

“I’ll play the loser.” He volunteers.

“Normally you play the winner.”

“Honey, I’m not going to be a match for the loser.”

Marvin makes his move, hits the timer, and reaches for Whizzer’s hand. “We’ll play nice. One game with the winner. I did agree to lose at racquetball Tuesday…”

“We already made our deal for Tuesday. If I play the winner, do I get you next Friday?”

Marvin groans, but he kisses Whizzer’s hand. “Next Friday, with enough time to rest my aching muscles before picking Jason up.”

“I’m going to get you in with me twice a week. Every week.” Whizzer grins. 

“And just how do you think you’re going to convince me to do that?”

“I have my little ways…” 

“Oh. Those.” He rolls his eyes. “All right, twice a week. Every week.”

“Let me guess.” Jason makes a face. “More kissing?”

“Yup, got it in one. All kissing.” Whizzer nods.

“You know, someday, you’re going to have a girl over, and you’re going to hate it when I interrupt you every time you try and get a kiss.” Marvin says, laughing at Jason’s exaggerated gagging. 

“What’s her name, Heather?” Whizzer adds. “The girl you mentioned the other night? Now I know you don’t think she’s gross.”

“That doesn’t mean I want to kiss her.”

“Good, don’t get ahead of yourself. Your move.”

The teasing might put Jason slightly off his best game, but Whizzer keeps the playing field even, reaching over every so often to play with Marvin’s hair, or tickling the back of his neck. It’s a tight game, but it goes to Jason-- and Marvin is pretty sure he doesn’t imagine Whizzer relaxing slightly at his side, at that. Which… all right. Fair.

“Good game.” Marvin leans forward to shake Jason’s hand, then to tousle his hair. “I’ll start on dinner, you two have fun?”

“Do you want me to go easy on you?” Jason asks. 

“No. A little.” He laughs. “Just don’t laugh when I'm lousy?”

“Okay. I’ll help you, if you want. And you can help me tomorrow with pitching.”

“Deal.”

Marvin leaves them to it, and gets dinner made, listens to the occasional laughter from the other room. Moves to peer through the doorway when he doesn’t hear them, to see them both leaning across the board in serious discussion, Whizzer moving where Jason instructs him. Very like how he’d first taught Jason, explaining his potential next moves and counseling him which to take.

It’s sweet.

If he didn’t have macaroni and cheese and peas and fish sticks to keep an eye on, he’d linger longer to watch them at it. 

Their game doesn’t go very long, they come in when he calls them to dinner, both in good spirits. And after, Jason clears and Marvin washes and Whizzer dries.


	8. In Step

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a little more family weekend...

“You’re not allowed to look this good.” Marvin informs Whizzer, Sunday as they’ve finished cleaning up after brunch, arms around his waist. He rests a cheek against the back of his shoulder, enjoys the familiar snug fit of their bodies together. Maybe in bed he’d discovered he likes being the little spoon, but out of it… he likes this better, likes wrapping his arms around Whizzer, holding him close, kissing the back of his neck or nuzzling his way behind an ear. Likes being pressed up against his ass, and discovering he might have a preference for doing the taking and not the giving hasn’t changed that. 

“Oh, not allowed?” Whizzer leans back into him a little with a laugh-- with a slight wriggle of the hips, since Jason is in the other room. Not enough to inflame, but enough to tease a little. “Is there a rule?”

“Yes. Excessively handsome men have to pay a fine. The court accepts kisses.”

“Mm, sounds serious.”

“There’s an additional penalty for dressing too well.” Marvin adds, because he doesn’t need to know from fashion, for the way Whizzer dresses to do things to him. The way his jeans fit, how the pink of his polo shirt flatters him, the clean white of the lightweight sweater, its sleeves pushed up to show off those forearms, and how they look a little tanner against the white. 

“That’s a lot of kisses, because I dress _very_ well.” Whizzer sets the last just-dried glass down on the counter, and Marvin loosens his hold enough to let him turn in his arms. He winds his arms around Marvin’s neck, smiling down at him. It’s some smile… the kind of smile that more than dazzles. Whizzer’s charm would be enough, but the warmth and the sweetness throws Marvin’s world off its axis and sends him reeling, every time. “Hi, there. Is this where I pay my fine?”

“Ohh, sir, I’m afraid you’re really exceeding the handsomeness limits we have set around these parts. I’m going to have to ask you to kiss me _very_ slowly.”

Whizzer bobs his eyebrows. “Well, I want to be a responsible citizen.”

“Mm-hm…”

“ _Marvin_ …” His voice goes low, turns Marvin’s knees and his insides to jelly, before he’s even kissed. Of course, the kiss, when it happens, is spectacular. Slow, as requested, and Whizzer’s arms around him tight. The kind of kiss he used to beg for, the kind he knows Whizzer used to hold back and pull out when he wanted to get his way, now Marvin’s for the asking. 

This, this is the bliss he’s waited so long for, the love he’s been craving, the feeling he’s chased his whole life and never thought he’d truly have. This is being loved.

Can he be blamed, if he melts?

“I can’t leave you alone for two minutes.” Jason groans, from the kitchen doorway. “Are we going to the park or what?”

“Well excuse me, I thought you were still getting ready.” Marvin laughs, steals one last quick parting peck before letting Whizzer go. “We’re going, we’re going.”

“Whizzer’s helping me with my pitch.” He adds, unfolding his arms and trotting over to tug them both door-ward.

“I remember.” He reaches over to tousle Jason’s hair. “If you two work hard on that, I guess I’ll pay for the ice cream after.”

“Wait and see, you’re not going to recognize this kid on the field next game.” Whizzer slings an arm around Jason’s shoulders. “I think we can earn some ice cream.”

They find a spot, in the park, enough space even with other kids running around for Jason to work on his pitching arm, and a bench where Marvin can sit to watch them, to see the way Jason listens attentively to Whizzer’s advice, how Whizzer walks him through the motions before moving into position to catch. 

He’s so good with him, it’s not new but it hits him hard each time he sees it. Even from back on the bench he can see how animated Jason is, how they both smile. The high fives when Jason makes improvements, the gentle way Whizzer tosses the ball back to Jason’s waiting hands, the encouraging cheers. He’s sorry not to have a camera on hand, watching them together. It seems like the kind of thing that ought to be captured. 

“Which one is yours?” A woman’s voice startles him out of the gentle bliss of watching his family at play. He turns to see her, youngish and blondish and with an air of contented motherhood about her.

“Oh, the-- mine’s the one playing catch with his, with his stepfather.” He says, and it’s not like he and Whizzer have discussed trying to live together again, but when it comes to describing who he is to Jason, the word comes easy. He doesn’t think before saying it, but once the words are out he can’t stop thinking about how easy it had been to say it, and how he doesn’t even know how to have a conversation like that. He doesn’t know where to _start_.

“Oh.” She smiles. “That’s so _nice_.”

“It is? I mean, it is! But-- it is?”

“I think it’s really sweet that you get along enough to all be out together. I think that’s what’s best for the kids, but it’s not always so easy! Mine’s in the green, the kids playing tag. Seven.”

“Oh. Energetic age. Good age, though, seven’s a good age.” Marvin nods, he doesn’t know what else _to_ say. He doesn’t know what to say about the misunderstanding, he’s used to his sexuality being a quiet thing. Not so quiet, when it came to disrupting his family, true, but it’s not the kind of thing people guess from looking at him, and it’s been so long since the last time he and Whizzer ever went out anywhere… he’s forgotten how to navigate moments like these. No one really took note of them at dinner or at the pool hall, and Whizzer’s sports club is what it is, he hasn’t had to say anything. He doesn’t know what to say now, about this. The fundamental misunderstanding of just who this man is to him. 

They’ve been all but glued at the hip, since coming back together, but he hasn’t had to explain or to defend.

When Jason and Whizzer do head back his way, he welcomes Jason with a high five, with a grin. 

“Did you see me?” Jason asks, excited, hopping from foot to foot.

“Yeah, I did! You feeling good about that pitch?”

“He’s making real improvement with his form.” Whizzer volunteers.

“I guess so.” Jason says. “My arm’s getting tired. And I’m ready for ice cream.” He says, leans on it a little the way he sometimes does when he expects a parental promise might have been forgotten.

“Ice cream it is, kid.” He gets to his feet, meets Whizzer’s easy smile. “What about you?”

“If you’re buying, I’m eating.”

“See, that’s what I mean, it’s just so-- it’s refreshing, really.” The woman on the bench says.

“I, uh… may have explained that you were Jason’s stepfather.” Marvin admits, his voice low. 

“Oh.” Whizzer smiles, mostly, though his face takes a few other stops as he processes the news. “Sure. Well, you wouldn’t want people thinking you let just any well-dressed stranger take your kid. And we’re refreshing!”

“Seeing the two of you get along so well.”

Whizzer’s brow furrows, he glances at Marvin. “That is definitely refreshing, yes. I mean, it would be hard to, uh… parent together, if we didn’t?”

“Well, I’d better get going, I promised ice cream.” Marvin jumps in. “But you enjoy this time. Seven. Great age, seven.”

“Sure. You have a nice day!” And she waves them off before turning back to watch her own child at play.

“What was that?” Whizzer whispers, as they move a ways away.

“She might have assumed, when I said ‘stepfather’--”

“ _Yes_? Don’t get me wrong, it’s a flattering title, I like it--”

“I mean, she might have assumed that you would be… not involved with _me_.”

“I’m sorry?”

“She might have assumed…”

“That I was _straight_?” He laughs. 

“She seemed to have assumed!”

“Well that explains that. Next time should I grab you and kiss you when I see you? Just to keep people from thinking--”

“People will think what they think.”

“Because I would hate for anyone to think--”

“Well if it would make you feel better--”

“Please _don’t_.” Jason rolls his eyes. “You’re so embarrassing.”

“I thought I was cool.” Whizzer says, mock-wounded.

He levels Whizzer with a look. “You’re cool but you’re also embarrassing. You might as well be my stepfather because you’re embarrassing like a dad.”

“Marvin?” Whizzer reaches out a hand. Marvin takes it.

“I mean… I did say… The job’s yours if you want it.”

“I want it.” He nods. “Thank you.”

They hold hands a little while, before they separate. Marvin buys three vanilla ice creams, and catches the way Whizzer keeps smiling over at him. 

“What?”

“Nothing.” He shrugs, smiles that smile. “I like seeing you eat ice cream. I like you.”

“The ice cream does it for you?”

“Only when it gets on your nose. But you do it for me.”

Marvin shakes his head, and there go the butterflies again. The way falling in love’s supposed to feel, but… with a new sense of security that comes from knowing Whizzer, that comes from knowing neither of them wants to make the same mistakes again. But… still the butterflies.

“You call _my_ taste questionable.” He rolls his eyes.

“Well… in clothes, yes. In men, no.”

“That’s _cute_ , Whizzer.”

Whizzer raises his eyebrows. Lets the moment go before Jason can get through his ice cream and complain about the flirtation. The conversation turns back towards baseball, and for a while, Jason and Whizzer doing their best to explain things Marvin is not following. Whizzer secures a standing invitation to the rest of the little league season. Marvin gets ice cream on his nose.

They head home, where Marvin has to hustle and help Jason pack-- he’d forgotten Trina had said she needed to pick Jason up early this weekend, they’d done their best not to argue about how he had so little time, to have it cut into, she’d pointed out that he was over during the week sometimes as they planned the bar mitzvah, and it’s just one Sunday night, he’d acquiesced with grace. How Jason can make such a mess over one weekend, Marvin doesn’t know, the room is always clean when Jason arrives. They’re just getting him set when Marvin hears the door, conversation he can’t make out.

“Is that Mom?”

“Let’s not tell her we spoiled dinner with ice cream.” He nods, hefting up the box with the Apple II. Although that’s not exactly what he’s most concerned with now.

“Marvin.” Trina greets, terse. 

Which, to be fair, she sometimes is and he doesn’t blame her, but this seems terser. Considering she’s cutting his weekend short, he should be the one who gets to be terse, but he doesn’t want to be, he doesn’t want this to be a fight. He elects to pretend things are normal enough and that they get along.

“Hey. Nice weekend?”

“All right. You?” 

Okay. That was pointed.

“Always is. We saw a movie, went to the park. Can I get this loaded up for you? You bring the car?”

“Thank you.”

She takes Jason’s bag, Marvin follows them down. Gets the computer into the trunk, gets a hug from Jason before Trina gets him buckled in, closes the car door on him. 

“So.” She turns.

“So.” He spreads his arms.

“Whizzer?”

“Is that so bad? Jason already likes Whizzer. I’m not going to date a man our son doesn’t like. I’m not going to date a man I don’t-- Yes, Whizzer.”

“Well that’s fine, I guess.”

“You say that like it’s not.” Marvin sighs.

“It’s fine. It’s your life. I just don’t want to see it all go badly, I guess.”

“Well… thanks.” He smiles, though it’s a little tight. “Give Mendel my best?”

“Sure. We’ll call you if there’s any news on the bar mitzvah front…”

“Sure. We’ll get together and figure it out. Eventually.”

Goodbyes are awkward. Which they sometimes are. Not this awkward, not in a while, but then… 

Well.

Upstairs, Whizzer tugs a wearied Marvin into a hug, laughs softly and lets Marvin just slump against his chest. Rubs his back until some of the tension drains away. Marvin hooks a couple fingers through Whizzer’s belt loops and groans, _theatrically_ , until he feels Whizzer kiss the crown of his head. 

“So your ex-wife wasn’t thrilled to see me.”

“It’s fine.”

“Is it?” He squeezes the back of Marvin’s neck, urges him up. 

“Yeah. It is. She doesn’t need to be _thrilled_ to see you.”

“Should I have hidden in the bedroom and not answered the door?”

“Don’t be silly. It’s not that big a deal, she’ll get used to it. I’m just…” Marvin shrugs. “Sensitive. That doesn’t mean it isn’t fine.”

“Okay.” Whizzer kisses him again, gets his nose, the corner of his mouth, his lips at last. 

“Stay one more night?”

“Hm… convince me.” He says, and it sounds like yes.

Marvin turns him, so that he can plaster himself against Whizzer’s back, hands sliding from his hips up to his chest. He nuzzles his way from shoulder to neck while he’s at it, breathes him in and nudges his collar down to drop kisses at the nape of his neck.

“Mm, stay with me.” He hums, thumbs at a nipple through two soft layers of clothing, which is perhaps not enough to excite, but at least gets the message across. “I want you to.”

“You want a little of this?” Whizzer rolls his hips back-- which mostly puts his ass a little higher than Marvin thinks he means it to wind up. 

“No-- if you want. I’d like to blow you.”

“You blew me this morning. And yesterday morning.”

“It was a rush job.”

“Oh yeah?” He rocks back into him some more, teasing. He strokes over the backs of Marvin’s hands, along his forearms and then back. “You wanna make up for that with something special?”

“I want you… I want to make it special. Stay?”

Whizzer sighs, relaxed in his arms, his head tilting back. “What are we doing here, Marv?”

“Blowjobs, I was hoping. _Filthy_ ones.”

“I mean… are you going to keep asking me to stay, am I going to keep saying yes? We’ve spent kind of… all of our nights together, since we got back together.”

“Is that… not what you want?” Marvin frowns, pulling back a little, though not all the way.

“I don’t know what I want. I want to get things right, I don’t know what that means.” He brings one of Marvin’s hands up to his lips. “It feels good, this thing we’ve got now. But I’d be a fool if I wasn’t a little afraid of screwing it all up. It’s so easy to jump off the deep end with you. But… is that-- is this going to work? I just don’t want to make a mistake.”

“Yeah.” He kisses Whizzer’s shoulder, rests against him. “I never should have let you go the first time.”

“No, no… we needed that. I mean, it hurt, but… we both know we both needed to change. We both needed to change. I just… you’re different. You were always different. We weren’t ready to be what we needed to be, are we ready now?”

“I’m ready. I’m ready to try, I’m ready to change. I am… here. Wanting you.” Marvin sighs. “I want you to stay. This week… this week has been really good.”

“It has been. It’s been great.”

“And the past two years have been hard.”

“Hard as shit.” Whizzer agrees. “And also empty?”

“Kind of. Sort of. Also lonely?”

“Kind of.” He nods. “Sort of.”

“I don’t like to wake up to an empty apartment. On Monday morning, I don’t want to wake up to an empty apartment. I’ll make you breakfast. Stay.”

“Marvin…”

“I am... so in love with you.” He says, his voice and his eyes watery.

“Marvin, I want to stay. Can we-- I don’t know, can we agree on what our anniversary is this time around?”

“Yeah. Yes. Of course.”

“March eleventh--” Whizzer starts.

“March the seventh--” Marvin does too.

“Always the fast mover.”

“I remember the date of my son’s little league game.”

“Our _date_ was on the eleventh, Marvin, a relationship doesn’t begin the moment you _see_ me.” Whizzer teases.

“You agreed to the date when we met on the seventh.”

“Split the difference and call it the ninth?”

He laughs and kisses Whizzer’s shoulder. “You’re staying?”

“I’m staying.”

“The ninth has a nice ring.” He agrees.


End file.
